Before I go back to sleep, I thought I'd share an insight I just had on defining evangelicalism today. I'm a Biblehead by trade and so I've only become engaged in definitions of fundamentalism and evangelicalism because of my social location. I have a hard enough time reading the books I'm interested in let alone books like Marsden's, Fundamentalism, or Bebbington's, The Dominance of Evangelicalism.
However, this can be an advantage too. Because of my interests as a Biblehead, I know a few things both about hermeneutics and history. So I have come into conflict from time to time with the Marsden-Noll paradigm concerning fundamentalism, as well as with my sense that evangelicalism is a movement that arose in the 1940s. I haven't had the time to engage these pillars on a scholarly level but as I have encountered their paradigm I have tried to map it to my own.
The insight I just had is that a key difference in my way of looking at such things is that I believe (i.e., it is my impression that) the Noll-Bebbington series focuses overly on continuity in what it calls evangelicalism. Bebbington thus helpfully identifies four features: 1) focus on the Bible, 2) focus on the cross, 3) focus on conversion, and 4) focus on activism. The problem is that the ideological challenges of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, in my opinion, make the neo-evangelicalism of the 1940s something that should be treated more as a new entity than one in continuity with Edwards.
This is, I believe, a persistent problem with historical perspective. What, for example, is the real impact of pre-revolutionary America on us today? It is interesting to be sure. It may have great local significance in some places. But the impact of so much pre-US history is a mediated impact. It impacts us indirectly because it impacted something else that has impacted us more directly.
We can find inspiration from Jefferson or Madison. We can make them directly relevant to us if we want. But that is us making them relevant. Their real relevance is in the institutions they established that have continued to today.
So evangelicalism today must be defined not in terms of Edwards or its history--this is the etymological fallacy, the fallacy that mistakenly thinks that what something has meant in the past somehow affects directly its meaning in the present. This is a clear fallacy of meaning. The meaning of words and actions is a function of their use and significance today, plain and simple. The past has led up to that use and so can provide insight. But it cannot control or dictate what words or actions mean today.
So the evangelical movement that arose in the 1940s was a unique cocktail in the history of the world. It must be defined socio-culturally as much as ideologically. It was, as all such movements are, a response to the circumstances of its day. It no doubt involved continuity with some language and identity from the past. But it must be understood primarily as a reaction to both modernism and fundamentalism in the post-WW2 era, not as the heir to Edwards or Spurgeon.
Showing posts with label Mark Noll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Noll. Show all posts
Thursday, August 09, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Christian Teaching Today...
Very interesting piece by Jenell Williams Paris in Christianity Today in response to Mark Noll's book, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind. It really gives a good sense of the thousand different ways a Christian professor is pulled at a Christian college.
The body of Christ imagery is as always so simple and yet very helpful. Even among professors you will find different gifts. Some are gifted to lead the way in thought. Some are gifted to lead the way in service and application. Some are good at organizing the very place of learning. Some are good mentoring students. Some can do several of these things well.
A robust institution wants a little of everything and, even in the spread of universities, we also have the possibility of differing emphases.
The body of Christ imagery is as always so simple and yet very helpful. Even among professors you will find different gifts. Some are gifted to lead the way in thought. Some are gifted to lead the way in service and application. Some are good at organizing the very place of learning. Some are good mentoring students. Some can do several of these things well.
A robust institution wants a little of everything and, even in the spread of universities, we also have the possibility of differing emphases.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Puritans--The Original American Evangelicals?
I'm skimming Divided by Faith for the conference on campus this weekend reflecting on the book 10 years later. So far an excellent book.
What I'm sick of is the construct of evangelicalism, propagated by Mark Noll, that the New England Puritans were the original American evangelicals with the movement somewhat abating until the mid-twentieth century. These aren't my family or my progeny.
Why we as Wesleyans have any need to identify ourselves as evangelicals is beyond me.
What I'm sick of is the construct of evangelicalism, propagated by Mark Noll, that the New England Puritans were the original American evangelicals with the movement somewhat abating until the mid-twentieth century. These aren't my family or my progeny.
Why we as Wesleyans have any need to identify ourselves as evangelicals is beyond me.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Zeal vs. Knowledge
What is that strange phenomenon where those with the most zeal often seem to lack "knowledge," while those with the most "knowledge" often seem to lack zeal? Popular American Christian lore has of course romanticized the person with zeal who defies those with "knowledge." The idea is that this person intuits with the Spirit things the person with "knowledge" cannot. Correspondingly, the person with "knowledge" is villianized as an unspiritual person.
Surely it doesn't have to work this way. In the words of Jack Handy, "Sometimes I think the experts actually are experts." Mark Noll called it the "scandal of the evangelical mind," the sanctioning of ignorance in the name of truth. It hardly makes sense to think that knowledge and learning is in an inverse relationship with spirituality. Wouldn't this line of thought ultimately imply that the truth is contrary to spirituality? Wouldn't this imply, in the end, that Christianity isn't actually true? On the contrary, doesn't the first paragraph above sound an awful lot like a coping mechanism for ignorance, a way to justify not having to think or learn anything?
My own ignorance has no doubt been apparent to those with more knowledge than I from time to time. Was it when I was most zealous? Surely it doesn't always work the other way either, where zeal means a person's wrong!
So what got me thinking about this was a recent sermon I heard with a zealous speaker who has done way more for the kingdom of God than I have. But there was this typical tone too. "People ask me what my eschatology is... Look it up. Matthew 24--when the gospel is preached to all the nations Jesus will come back."
I fully accept the Christian mission to take the good news of Christ to everyone. But I would like to pose a few questions. I've created a new category I'm calling "Deepening Faith." The purpose of this category is to try to join zeal with knowledge. I want to pose questions, because it may very well be that I also lack knowledge. But just maybe over time we can all grow together, those with knowledge in zeal and those with zeal in knowledge.
The acquisition of knowledge can involve reversals, and perhaps this in part feeds the "those with knowledge don't know what we feel" sense. One bit of knowledge seems to lead in a new direction. But a slightly more advanced set of knowledge points back in the way of the one without the first bit of knowledge. And so it can be. The acquisition of knowledge can involve reversals.
So here are the questions. Colossians 1:23 says that the gospel has been preached to every creature under heaven. That was way back in the first century. In other words, Colossians seems to say Matthew 24:14 was already fulfilled 2000 years ago.
After all, what was "every nation" back then (Matt. 24:14; Mark 13:10)? Would not anyone in the first century hearing such words have thought of the Mediterranean world? In short, we can understand how Colossians could consider the gospel already proclaimed to every creature. The gospel had reached the "limits of the west" by the time of Paul, as 1 Clement says, probably in the 90s.
The idea that Christ would return when we finally brought the gospel to the deepest unreached tribe has never made sense to me. Hardly any of the "tribes" around today were here at the time of Christ. Those who were have long since died, unreached, if that were really what Matthew meant. Countless tribes have come into existence and passed out of existence unreached since the time of this verse.
It seems to me that our choice is either to consider these verses fulfilled in the first century, as Colossians 1:23 seems to say, or it would be a failed prediction. So let's continue to take the good news of Christ to the nations! But maybe eschatology is a little more complex than the simplistic answers of some zealous folk.
Surely it doesn't have to work this way. In the words of Jack Handy, "Sometimes I think the experts actually are experts." Mark Noll called it the "scandal of the evangelical mind," the sanctioning of ignorance in the name of truth. It hardly makes sense to think that knowledge and learning is in an inverse relationship with spirituality. Wouldn't this line of thought ultimately imply that the truth is contrary to spirituality? Wouldn't this imply, in the end, that Christianity isn't actually true? On the contrary, doesn't the first paragraph above sound an awful lot like a coping mechanism for ignorance, a way to justify not having to think or learn anything?
My own ignorance has no doubt been apparent to those with more knowledge than I from time to time. Was it when I was most zealous? Surely it doesn't always work the other way either, where zeal means a person's wrong!
So what got me thinking about this was a recent sermon I heard with a zealous speaker who has done way more for the kingdom of God than I have. But there was this typical tone too. "People ask me what my eschatology is... Look it up. Matthew 24--when the gospel is preached to all the nations Jesus will come back."
I fully accept the Christian mission to take the good news of Christ to everyone. But I would like to pose a few questions. I've created a new category I'm calling "Deepening Faith." The purpose of this category is to try to join zeal with knowledge. I want to pose questions, because it may very well be that I also lack knowledge. But just maybe over time we can all grow together, those with knowledge in zeal and those with zeal in knowledge.
The acquisition of knowledge can involve reversals, and perhaps this in part feeds the "those with knowledge don't know what we feel" sense. One bit of knowledge seems to lead in a new direction. But a slightly more advanced set of knowledge points back in the way of the one without the first bit of knowledge. And so it can be. The acquisition of knowledge can involve reversals.
So here are the questions. Colossians 1:23 says that the gospel has been preached to every creature under heaven. That was way back in the first century. In other words, Colossians seems to say Matthew 24:14 was already fulfilled 2000 years ago.
After all, what was "every nation" back then (Matt. 24:14; Mark 13:10)? Would not anyone in the first century hearing such words have thought of the Mediterranean world? In short, we can understand how Colossians could consider the gospel already proclaimed to every creature. The gospel had reached the "limits of the west" by the time of Paul, as 1 Clement says, probably in the 90s.
The idea that Christ would return when we finally brought the gospel to the deepest unreached tribe has never made sense to me. Hardly any of the "tribes" around today were here at the time of Christ. Those who were have long since died, unreached, if that were really what Matthew meant. Countless tribes have come into existence and passed out of existence unreached since the time of this verse.
It seems to me that our choice is either to consider these verses fulfilled in the first century, as Colossians 1:23 seems to say, or it would be a failed prediction. So let's continue to take the good news of Christ to the nations! But maybe eschatology is a little more complex than the simplistic answers of some zealous folk.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Death Knoll for Mark Noll's...
... construction of fundamentalism is the Table of Contents for the volumes of The Fundamentals put out in the 1920's (thanks to Bud Bence for the list).
Dispensationalists? Yeah, I see them. Thinkers like B. B. Warfield--in whose train J. Gresham Machen, Westminster Theological Seminary, Wheaton, Fuller followed--yes, I see them.
Holiness types and Pentecostals? Nope. (I doubt the Methodist Episcopal bishop on the list would have liked to be identified with the holiness types)
___
VOLUME I
History of Higher Criticism - Dyson Hague Wycliffe College (Toronto)
Mosaic Authorship of the Pentatuch – Frederick Wright - Oberlin College (!)
Fallacies of Higher Criticism – F Bettex Stuttgart, Germany
Holy Scriptures and Modern Negations – James Orr - Glasgow
Old Testament Criticism and New Testament Chistianity Griffith Thomas - Wycliffe College (Toronto)
Internal Evidence of the Fourth Gospel – Osborne Troop - Montreal
Testimony of Christ to the Old Testament William Caven – Knox College (Toronto)
Early Narratives of Genesis - James Orr
One Isaiah George Robinson - McCormick Seminary Chicago
Book of Daniel Joseph Wilson – Reformed Episcopal Seminary Philadelphia
Doctrinal Value of Genesis 1 – Dyson Hague
Pentatuch and Graf-Welhausen Craigh Robinson County Cork Ireland
Testimony to the Truth of Scripture Frederick Wright
Archeology and the Scriptures M.G Kyle Xenia (Ohio) Seminary
Science and Christian Faith James Orr
My experience with Higher Criticism J.J. Reeve Southwestern Seminary Fort Worth TX
VOLUME II
Inspiration of the Bible James Gray Moody Bible Institute
Inspiration L.W. Manhall Germantown PA
The Glory of Jesus, Proof of Inspiration - William Moorhead Xenia Seminary
Testimony of Scriptures to the Themselves - George Bishop New Jersey
Organic Unity of the Bible Arthur Pierson
Fulfilled Prophecy Arno Gaebelein -- New York City (Founder of Christianity Today (?)
Life in the Word Philp Mauro Attorney New York
Is There a God Thomas Whitehall Kilmarnock Scotland
God in Christ - Robert Speer Presbyterian Mission Board New York
The Deity of Christ - Benjamin Warfield Princeton Seminary
Virgin Birth - James Orr
God –Man John Stock
Person and Work of Christ Bishop Nuelson Methodist Episcopal Church – Omaha NE
Bodily Resurrection of Christ R. A. Torrey
Deity of the Holy Spirit – R. A. Torrey
Holy Spirit and the Sons of God - W. Eerdman
Conversion of Paul Lord Lyttleton Cambridge
Christianity No Fable Thomas Whitelaw Kilmarnock Scotland
VOLUME III
Biblical Concept of Sin – Thomas Whitelaw
Paul’s Doctrine of Sin Charles Williams Southwestern Baptist Seminary Fort Worth TX
Sin and Judgment to Come – Robert Anderson London
Christ’s Teaching about Future Retribution - William Proctor Croydon, England
The Atonement – Franklin Johnson - Chicago
At-One-Ment by Propitiation – Dyson Hague - St. Paul’s Cathedral, London
The Grace of God - C. I. Scofield
Salvation by Grace - Thomas (?) Spurgeon London
The Nature of Regeneration - Thomas Boston d. 1732(!)
Regeneration, Conversion and Reformation George Lasher Cincinnati
Justification by Faith H.C. Moule Bishop of Durham, England
Doctrines that Must be Emphasized in Successful Evangelism – L W Munhall, Philadelphia
Preach the Word - Howard Crosby, Chancellor of New York University, New York
Pastoral and Personal Evangelism Timothy Stone Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, Chicago
The Sunday School’s True Evangelism Charles Trumball Philadelphia
The Place of Prayer in Evangelism – R. A. Torrey Dean of BIOLA Los Angeles
Foreign Missions and World Wide Evangelism – Robert Speer Presbyterian Board of Missions
A Message from Missions – Charles Bowen Olympia, WA
What Missionary Motive Should Prevail? Henry Frost Director of China Inland Mission, Philadelphia
Consecration - Henry Frost
Is Romanism Christianity? T. W. Medhurst Glasgow, Scotland
Rome, the Antagonist of the Nation – J M Foster, Boston
The True Church - Bishop Ryle
Foreign Missions and the Providence of God Arthur Pierson
The Purpose of the Incarnation - G. Campbell Morgan Westminster Chapel – London
Tributes to Christ and the Bible by Brainy Men Not Known as Active Christians J Anonymous
VOLUME IV
Modern Philosophy - Philip Mauro
The Knowledge of God – David James Burrell Marble Collegiate Church , New York
The Wisdom of this World – A. W. Pitzer Salem VA
The Science of Conversion – H. M. Sydenstricker West Point, MS
The Decadence of Darwinism Harry Beach Grand Junction, CO
The Passing of Evolution – George Frederick Wright
Evolutionism in the Pulpit - anonymous
The Church and Socialism - Charles Eerdman
Millenial Dawn William Moorehead United Presbyterian Seminary, Xenia OH
Mormonism - R. G. McNeice Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Salt Lake City UT
Eddyism, Called Christian Science Maurice Wilson Dayton OH
Modern Spiritualism Algernon Pollock Weston, England
Satan and his Kingdom Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis Leicester, England
Why Save the Lord’s Day - Daniel Hoffman Martin. Glens Falls, NY
Apologetic Value of Paul’s Epistles E. J. Stobo
Divine Efficacy of Prayer Arthur Pierson
The Prayer Life of George Mueller – Arthur Pierson
The Scriptures – A. C. Dixon Pastor of Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, England
What the Bible Contains for Believers George Pentecost Darien CT
The Hope of the Church – John McNicol Toronto Bible Training School
The Coming of Christ - Charles Erdman
The Testimony of Christian Experience – President of Louisville Seminary
Personal Testimony – Howard Kelly
Personal Testimony – H W. Web-Peploe Vicar of St. Paul’s London
Personal Testimony C. T. Studd
Personal Testimony Philip Mauro
____
The very titles of the essays show that the pioneers of fundamentalism were engaged with modernism. They were not running away from it. That means that Noll's Foucaultian schema that largely distinquishes fundamentalist from evangelical on the basis of withdrawal and engagement is fundamentally skewed (i.e., fundamentalists=the stupid people and evangelicals=the smart ones). The fundamentalists were ideologically combative and were, overwhelmingly, Calvinist.
For those who don't know my beef here, I have argued that the roots of the Wesleyan Church are more pre-modern than anti-modern, with fundamentalism being fundamentally anti-modern. The problem is not primarily the positions the fundamentalists took. For example, I believe in the virgin birth and the divinity of Christ. The problem for me is 1) the militant, combative tone of fundamentalism and 2) the fact that fundamentalism let the modernists (in the early twentieth century sense) set the categories for their response.
Fundamentalism is thus defined by modernism as anti-modernism, its categories were defined by that which it was against. But since the categories of modernism were wrong, that means that the categories of fundamentalism are wrong.
My fundamentals
I would argue that most Wesleyans haven't even heard of most of the issues in the list above. We have our own list of what is important. Here are some of mine given where we are in history, at least for now (the lists change as we engage changes in culture). I think the Wesleyan fits well with this list and would do well to move forward with these:
1. A generous orthodoxy
Orthodox, yes. We affirm the commonly held beliefs of Christendom, the consensus of the communion of saints through the ages, always with room for reformation on the basis of Scripture as the fountain of faith and the kingdom as the trajectory of faith.
Generous, yes. God will sort out who is going to be saved and who isn't. We are charitable toward those we disagree with and with the damned. We speak truth to power in love rather than in anger. We want the world to be transformed, not destroyed. If your heart (not head) is as our heart then give us your hand. In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity.
2. A missional Christianity
God is in control, but we live as if anyone can be saved, as if they will not be saved unless we bring the good news to them, and as if salvation can be lost. This is how we live, regardless of the theological possibilities to the contrary.
We are concerned for people's souls but we are concerned for their stomachs and their marriages and their houses and their wallets. We are concerned for nations. We are concerned for the poor and the widow and the fatherless. We are concerned for God's creation and for the beauty He has created.
3. Changed lives
We have no time for a religion that doesn't do anything. People are enslaved to powers and they can be freed. If Christ does not change lives, really, then Christianity is false. If people can't been freed from their sins, then let's walk away from this thing now, it's useless. The proof is in the putting. If Christ does not actually transform the world for the better, then Christianity is false.
4. Full inclusion of all people
The age of the Spirit is the age in which things like race, status, and gender fall away as markers of importance. Those who have tricked themselves into thinking racist attitudes to be associated with Christianity because they are "conservative"--attitudes toward immigrants or toward entire groups of people different from me--have no place in the kingdom.
We wipe the dust off our feet of those enslaved to the elements of the world who resist women in all forms of ministry or who insist a numskull male with a sharp wife be the head of that particular household because he has certain genitalia. Be gone. God's kingdom knows nothing of this.
And we are responsible for those who are disempowered among us. We are responsible for their bodies whether they come to Christ or not because every human is our responsibility. Again, Christ will not separate the sheep from the goats on the basis of whether you were politically conservative or not but by what you did to the least of these.
5. Spirit-led
Culture constantly changes. Christ does not acquiesce to cultural values, but Christ engages culture. History is the story of Christians confusing the key components of Christianity with culture. The extreme examples are those who look like they are stuck at a particular point in recent history, while thinking they are stuck in the New Testament church.
The heart of the church is always moving with culture through the leadership of the Spirit. This is not the same as compromising its values. It is the very principle of incarnation principally shown in Christ but also in the way God revealed the Scriptures in history. The Spirit-led attitude will thus regularly come into tension with "conservatism," which is by definition resistance to change. True Christianity strongly resists change on its orthodoxy, and is thus fundamentally "conservative" in that regard. But in regard to the working out of its values in culture, Christianity is fundamentally on the move, "progressing" toward the kingdom.
What do you think?
Dispensationalists? Yeah, I see them. Thinkers like B. B. Warfield--in whose train J. Gresham Machen, Westminster Theological Seminary, Wheaton, Fuller followed--yes, I see them.
Holiness types and Pentecostals? Nope. (I doubt the Methodist Episcopal bishop on the list would have liked to be identified with the holiness types)
___
VOLUME I
History of Higher Criticism - Dyson Hague Wycliffe College (Toronto)
Mosaic Authorship of the Pentatuch – Frederick Wright - Oberlin College (!)
Fallacies of Higher Criticism – F Bettex Stuttgart, Germany
Holy Scriptures and Modern Negations – James Orr - Glasgow
Old Testament Criticism and New Testament Chistianity Griffith Thomas - Wycliffe College (Toronto)
Internal Evidence of the Fourth Gospel – Osborne Troop - Montreal
Testimony of Christ to the Old Testament William Caven – Knox College (Toronto)
Early Narratives of Genesis - James Orr
One Isaiah George Robinson - McCormick Seminary Chicago
Book of Daniel Joseph Wilson – Reformed Episcopal Seminary Philadelphia
Doctrinal Value of Genesis 1 – Dyson Hague
Pentatuch and Graf-Welhausen Craigh Robinson County Cork Ireland
Testimony to the Truth of Scripture Frederick Wright
Archeology and the Scriptures M.G Kyle Xenia (Ohio) Seminary
Science and Christian Faith James Orr
My experience with Higher Criticism J.J. Reeve Southwestern Seminary Fort Worth TX
VOLUME II
Inspiration of the Bible James Gray Moody Bible Institute
Inspiration L.W. Manhall Germantown PA
The Glory of Jesus, Proof of Inspiration - William Moorhead Xenia Seminary
Testimony of Scriptures to the Themselves - George Bishop New Jersey
Organic Unity of the Bible Arthur Pierson
Fulfilled Prophecy Arno Gaebelein -- New York City (Founder of Christianity Today (?)
Life in the Word Philp Mauro Attorney New York
Is There a God Thomas Whitehall Kilmarnock Scotland
God in Christ - Robert Speer Presbyterian Mission Board New York
The Deity of Christ - Benjamin Warfield Princeton Seminary
Virgin Birth - James Orr
God –Man John Stock
Person and Work of Christ Bishop Nuelson Methodist Episcopal Church – Omaha NE
Bodily Resurrection of Christ R. A. Torrey
Deity of the Holy Spirit – R. A. Torrey
Holy Spirit and the Sons of God - W. Eerdman
Conversion of Paul Lord Lyttleton Cambridge
Christianity No Fable Thomas Whitelaw Kilmarnock Scotland
VOLUME III
Biblical Concept of Sin – Thomas Whitelaw
Paul’s Doctrine of Sin Charles Williams Southwestern Baptist Seminary Fort Worth TX
Sin and Judgment to Come – Robert Anderson London
Christ’s Teaching about Future Retribution - William Proctor Croydon, England
The Atonement – Franklin Johnson - Chicago
At-One-Ment by Propitiation – Dyson Hague - St. Paul’s Cathedral, London
The Grace of God - C. I. Scofield
Salvation by Grace - Thomas (?) Spurgeon London
The Nature of Regeneration - Thomas Boston d. 1732(!)
Regeneration, Conversion and Reformation George Lasher Cincinnati
Justification by Faith H.C. Moule Bishop of Durham, England
Doctrines that Must be Emphasized in Successful Evangelism – L W Munhall, Philadelphia
Preach the Word - Howard Crosby, Chancellor of New York University, New York
Pastoral and Personal Evangelism Timothy Stone Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, Chicago
The Sunday School’s True Evangelism Charles Trumball Philadelphia
The Place of Prayer in Evangelism – R. A. Torrey Dean of BIOLA Los Angeles
Foreign Missions and World Wide Evangelism – Robert Speer Presbyterian Board of Missions
A Message from Missions – Charles Bowen Olympia, WA
What Missionary Motive Should Prevail? Henry Frost Director of China Inland Mission, Philadelphia
Consecration - Henry Frost
Is Romanism Christianity? T. W. Medhurst Glasgow, Scotland
Rome, the Antagonist of the Nation – J M Foster, Boston
The True Church - Bishop Ryle
Foreign Missions and the Providence of God Arthur Pierson
The Purpose of the Incarnation - G. Campbell Morgan Westminster Chapel – London
Tributes to Christ and the Bible by Brainy Men Not Known as Active Christians J Anonymous
VOLUME IV
Modern Philosophy - Philip Mauro
The Knowledge of God – David James Burrell Marble Collegiate Church , New York
The Wisdom of this World – A. W. Pitzer Salem VA
The Science of Conversion – H. M. Sydenstricker West Point, MS
The Decadence of Darwinism Harry Beach Grand Junction, CO
The Passing of Evolution – George Frederick Wright
Evolutionism in the Pulpit - anonymous
The Church and Socialism - Charles Eerdman
Millenial Dawn William Moorehead United Presbyterian Seminary, Xenia OH
Mormonism - R. G. McNeice Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Salt Lake City UT
Eddyism, Called Christian Science Maurice Wilson Dayton OH
Modern Spiritualism Algernon Pollock Weston, England
Satan and his Kingdom Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis Leicester, England
Why Save the Lord’s Day - Daniel Hoffman Martin. Glens Falls, NY
Apologetic Value of Paul’s Epistles E. J. Stobo
Divine Efficacy of Prayer Arthur Pierson
The Prayer Life of George Mueller – Arthur Pierson
The Scriptures – A. C. Dixon Pastor of Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, England
What the Bible Contains for Believers George Pentecost Darien CT
The Hope of the Church – John McNicol Toronto Bible Training School
The Coming of Christ - Charles Erdman
The Testimony of Christian Experience – President of Louisville Seminary
Personal Testimony – Howard Kelly
Personal Testimony – H W. Web-Peploe Vicar of St. Paul’s London
Personal Testimony C. T. Studd
Personal Testimony Philip Mauro
____
The very titles of the essays show that the pioneers of fundamentalism were engaged with modernism. They were not running away from it. That means that Noll's Foucaultian schema that largely distinquishes fundamentalist from evangelical on the basis of withdrawal and engagement is fundamentally skewed (i.e., fundamentalists=the stupid people and evangelicals=the smart ones). The fundamentalists were ideologically combative and were, overwhelmingly, Calvinist.
For those who don't know my beef here, I have argued that the roots of the Wesleyan Church are more pre-modern than anti-modern, with fundamentalism being fundamentally anti-modern. The problem is not primarily the positions the fundamentalists took. For example, I believe in the virgin birth and the divinity of Christ. The problem for me is 1) the militant, combative tone of fundamentalism and 2) the fact that fundamentalism let the modernists (in the early twentieth century sense) set the categories for their response.
Fundamentalism is thus defined by modernism as anti-modernism, its categories were defined by that which it was against. But since the categories of modernism were wrong, that means that the categories of fundamentalism are wrong.
My fundamentals
I would argue that most Wesleyans haven't even heard of most of the issues in the list above. We have our own list of what is important. Here are some of mine given where we are in history, at least for now (the lists change as we engage changes in culture). I think the Wesleyan fits well with this list and would do well to move forward with these:
1. A generous orthodoxy
Orthodox, yes. We affirm the commonly held beliefs of Christendom, the consensus of the communion of saints through the ages, always with room for reformation on the basis of Scripture as the fountain of faith and the kingdom as the trajectory of faith.
Generous, yes. God will sort out who is going to be saved and who isn't. We are charitable toward those we disagree with and with the damned. We speak truth to power in love rather than in anger. We want the world to be transformed, not destroyed. If your heart (not head) is as our heart then give us your hand. In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity.
2. A missional Christianity
God is in control, but we live as if anyone can be saved, as if they will not be saved unless we bring the good news to them, and as if salvation can be lost. This is how we live, regardless of the theological possibilities to the contrary.
We are concerned for people's souls but we are concerned for their stomachs and their marriages and their houses and their wallets. We are concerned for nations. We are concerned for the poor and the widow and the fatherless. We are concerned for God's creation and for the beauty He has created.
3. Changed lives
We have no time for a religion that doesn't do anything. People are enslaved to powers and they can be freed. If Christ does not change lives, really, then Christianity is false. If people can't been freed from their sins, then let's walk away from this thing now, it's useless. The proof is in the putting. If Christ does not actually transform the world for the better, then Christianity is false.
4. Full inclusion of all people
The age of the Spirit is the age in which things like race, status, and gender fall away as markers of importance. Those who have tricked themselves into thinking racist attitudes to be associated with Christianity because they are "conservative"--attitudes toward immigrants or toward entire groups of people different from me--have no place in the kingdom.
We wipe the dust off our feet of those enslaved to the elements of the world who resist women in all forms of ministry or who insist a numskull male with a sharp wife be the head of that particular household because he has certain genitalia. Be gone. God's kingdom knows nothing of this.
And we are responsible for those who are disempowered among us. We are responsible for their bodies whether they come to Christ or not because every human is our responsibility. Again, Christ will not separate the sheep from the goats on the basis of whether you were politically conservative or not but by what you did to the least of these.
5. Spirit-led
Culture constantly changes. Christ does not acquiesce to cultural values, but Christ engages culture. History is the story of Christians confusing the key components of Christianity with culture. The extreme examples are those who look like they are stuck at a particular point in recent history, while thinking they are stuck in the New Testament church.
The heart of the church is always moving with culture through the leadership of the Spirit. This is not the same as compromising its values. It is the very principle of incarnation principally shown in Christ but also in the way God revealed the Scriptures in history. The Spirit-led attitude will thus regularly come into tension with "conservatism," which is by definition resistance to change. True Christianity strongly resists change on its orthodoxy, and is thus fundamentally "conservative" in that regard. But in regard to the working out of its values in culture, Christianity is fundamentally on the move, "progressing" toward the kingdom.
What do you think?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
2 Modernist Evangelical Coherence
Pre-modern interpretation might find coherence between diverse portions of the Bible in several ways. For example, Origen (ca. 185-254) believed that at times it would be “absurd and impossible” to take the biblical text literally.[i] To be sure, he believed that far more of the biblical text was meant literally than the portion “with a purely spiritual signification.” But at points where the literal meaning did not coincide with Origen’s overall understanding, he interpreted the text allegorically.[ii]
Augustine (ca. 354-430) similarly set down the rule:
"Whatever exists in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or sound doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one’s neighbor; sound doctrine to the knowledge of God and one’s neighbor."[iii]
Both Origen and Augustine thus used allegory and non-literal interpretation as tools to affirm the truthfulness of Scripture. They could interpret allegorically when the text said something that did not fit with their understanding—for Augustine especially when something did not fit with the rule of faith or the law of love. But they could also use it as a tool of coherence, to fit diverse parts of Scripture together that seemed to conflict in some way with each other.
The Protestant emphasis on the literal—or more accurately, the plain meaning of Scripture—thus removed a handy tool for affirming the truthfulness and coherence of the Bible in the face of apparent contradiction. In good evangelical fashion, Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart give as one of their foundational hermeneutical principles the notion that “a text cannot mean [today] what it never could have meant to its author or his or her readers.”[iv] If we apply this dictum to Genesis 1:27 (which Fee and Stuart do not), we cannot understand the “us” in the statement, “Let us make humanity in our own image,” as a reference to the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity was not hammered out until the fourth century AD and thus Genesis would hardly have had this meaning to anyone in the second millennium before Christ. Unlike Wesley, the modernist evangelical hermeneutic gives priority to the probable historical meaning of the text over a theological significance such as Wesley himself drew from it.
Kevin Vanhoozer similarly writes, “The Spirit may blow where, but not what, he wills.”[v] Such language is striking in its restrictive tone, but it is a reflection of Vanhoozer’s theological sense of the Spirit as one who bears witness to the Son, the Word (e.g., John 16:13), rather than being the word itself or the one who generates truth. For Vanhoozer, the function of the Spirit is as “the one who leads the community into the single correct interpretation: the literal sense.”[vi]
It is at this point that we might point out that the Wesleyan tradition for which this book is written has John Wesley himself more for a grandparent than as a parent, namely, the Wesleyan traditions that formed their identities in the holiness revivals of the late 1800’s: Wesleyans, Nazarenes, Free Methodists, and so forth. For those in these traditions, a “Wesleyan” hermeneutic cannot simply turn to John Wesley for precedent, but must look at the hermeneutic of its revivalist parents—even if to dismiss it. Mark Noll would call our forebears “fundamentalists,” but his use of this label skews the historical phenomenon—conspicuously in a way that exonerates his own theological sympathies of the label.[vii]
Rather than apply the term to individuals like J. Gresham Machen, who actually took the “fundamentalist” side in the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy within the Presbyterian Church, he applies it to “Pentecostals, holiness revivalists, and dispensationalists.”[viii] In other words, he applies the term to those whose reaction to the challenges of modernism were emotional, experiential, and who tended to remove themselves from the discussion rather than those who reacted intellectually and actively. This is a one-sided perspective on history at best. It also obscures the nature of the fundamentalist hermeneutic as a mechanism for finding coherence in the biblical text.[ix]
We have classified Wesley’s hermeneutic as “pre-modern” because of his relative inattention to historical-cultural and literary context. Nevertheless, he was quite forthright about the “analogy of faith” as key to the coherence of his interpretations. By contrast, the holiness-Pentecostal movements of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s were more “pneumatic” in their use of Scripture.[x] The Spirit might reveal directly to you what He wanted a specific passage of Scripture to mean for you.
At the same time, these movements had interpretations they held in common, such as Acts 2 as a reference to entire sanctification. Unlike Wesley, however, who looked more to the common tradition of Christianity for the coherence of Scripture, these groups found the coherence more in the theology of their particular group. They mirrored American culture in its democratic form, where everyone gets to vote and everyone’s vote counts the same.[xi] Distinctive theologies were often set from the beginning of such movements by charismatic founders whose stamps continue to this day.
Needless to say, the pre-modern hermeneutic of both Wesley and the holiness revivalists stands in significant tension with the contemporary evangelical hermeneutic we saw in Gordon Fee and Kevin Vanhoozer. Contemporary evangelicalism grew out of the fundamentalism of the early twentieth century as an attempt to read the books of the Bible in context while also affirming the coherence and truthfulness of Scripture in its historical meaning. It was, however, more sophisticated in its understanding of context and in its method of integrating diversity in the Bible than those groups that would become the fundamentalists of the late twentieth century. Many holiness groups joined the evangelical movement mid-century either unaware of the difference with the pneumatic interpretations of their past or, perhaps, to distance themselves from them.
We might thus speak of two Wesleyan hermeneutics in the late twentieth century, with many hybrids. Wesleyan scholars and academics largely absorbed the evangelical, contextual hermeneutic. For this group, we can hardly speak of a distinct Wesleyan strategy for finding the coherent meaning of Scripture, other than the fact that they looked at the biblical text with Wesleyan interests in mind. At the same time, perhaps the bulk of Wesleyans continued to interpret and integrate Scripture by defining the words and integrating them “as it seemed right in their own eyes,” eyes forged by Wesleyan sociology, using the inherent flexibility of words to make them take on meanings that could fit together and cohere with Wesleyan tradition.
[i] “On First Principles,” 18.
[ii] “On First Principles,” 19. When it comes to the law of Moses, Origen speaks of the “irrationality” and “impossibility” of observing many of the laws literally (“On First Principals,” 17).
[iii] “On Christian Doctrine,” 3.10.14.
[iv] How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 74.
[v] Is There a Meaning in This Text? 429.
[vi] Meaning, 415.
[vii] The Rise of the Evangelicals. The Scandal of the American Mind
[viii] ***
[ix] Frei.
[x] Dayton
[xi] Noll.
Augustine (ca. 354-430) similarly set down the rule:
"Whatever exists in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or sound doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one’s neighbor; sound doctrine to the knowledge of God and one’s neighbor."[iii]
Both Origen and Augustine thus used allegory and non-literal interpretation as tools to affirm the truthfulness of Scripture. They could interpret allegorically when the text said something that did not fit with their understanding—for Augustine especially when something did not fit with the rule of faith or the law of love. But they could also use it as a tool of coherence, to fit diverse parts of Scripture together that seemed to conflict in some way with each other.
The Protestant emphasis on the literal—or more accurately, the plain meaning of Scripture—thus removed a handy tool for affirming the truthfulness and coherence of the Bible in the face of apparent contradiction. In good evangelical fashion, Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart give as one of their foundational hermeneutical principles the notion that “a text cannot mean [today] what it never could have meant to its author or his or her readers.”[iv] If we apply this dictum to Genesis 1:27 (which Fee and Stuart do not), we cannot understand the “us” in the statement, “Let us make humanity in our own image,” as a reference to the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity was not hammered out until the fourth century AD and thus Genesis would hardly have had this meaning to anyone in the second millennium before Christ. Unlike Wesley, the modernist evangelical hermeneutic gives priority to the probable historical meaning of the text over a theological significance such as Wesley himself drew from it.
Kevin Vanhoozer similarly writes, “The Spirit may blow where, but not what, he wills.”[v] Such language is striking in its restrictive tone, but it is a reflection of Vanhoozer’s theological sense of the Spirit as one who bears witness to the Son, the Word (e.g., John 16:13), rather than being the word itself or the one who generates truth. For Vanhoozer, the function of the Spirit is as “the one who leads the community into the single correct interpretation: the literal sense.”[vi]
It is at this point that we might point out that the Wesleyan tradition for which this book is written has John Wesley himself more for a grandparent than as a parent, namely, the Wesleyan traditions that formed their identities in the holiness revivals of the late 1800’s: Wesleyans, Nazarenes, Free Methodists, and so forth. For those in these traditions, a “Wesleyan” hermeneutic cannot simply turn to John Wesley for precedent, but must look at the hermeneutic of its revivalist parents—even if to dismiss it. Mark Noll would call our forebears “fundamentalists,” but his use of this label skews the historical phenomenon—conspicuously in a way that exonerates his own theological sympathies of the label.[vii]
Rather than apply the term to individuals like J. Gresham Machen, who actually took the “fundamentalist” side in the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy within the Presbyterian Church, he applies it to “Pentecostals, holiness revivalists, and dispensationalists.”[viii] In other words, he applies the term to those whose reaction to the challenges of modernism were emotional, experiential, and who tended to remove themselves from the discussion rather than those who reacted intellectually and actively. This is a one-sided perspective on history at best. It also obscures the nature of the fundamentalist hermeneutic as a mechanism for finding coherence in the biblical text.[ix]
We have classified Wesley’s hermeneutic as “pre-modern” because of his relative inattention to historical-cultural and literary context. Nevertheless, he was quite forthright about the “analogy of faith” as key to the coherence of his interpretations. By contrast, the holiness-Pentecostal movements of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s were more “pneumatic” in their use of Scripture.[x] The Spirit might reveal directly to you what He wanted a specific passage of Scripture to mean for you.
At the same time, these movements had interpretations they held in common, such as Acts 2 as a reference to entire sanctification. Unlike Wesley, however, who looked more to the common tradition of Christianity for the coherence of Scripture, these groups found the coherence more in the theology of their particular group. They mirrored American culture in its democratic form, where everyone gets to vote and everyone’s vote counts the same.[xi] Distinctive theologies were often set from the beginning of such movements by charismatic founders whose stamps continue to this day.
Needless to say, the pre-modern hermeneutic of both Wesley and the holiness revivalists stands in significant tension with the contemporary evangelical hermeneutic we saw in Gordon Fee and Kevin Vanhoozer. Contemporary evangelicalism grew out of the fundamentalism of the early twentieth century as an attempt to read the books of the Bible in context while also affirming the coherence and truthfulness of Scripture in its historical meaning. It was, however, more sophisticated in its understanding of context and in its method of integrating diversity in the Bible than those groups that would become the fundamentalists of the late twentieth century. Many holiness groups joined the evangelical movement mid-century either unaware of the difference with the pneumatic interpretations of their past or, perhaps, to distance themselves from them.
We might thus speak of two Wesleyan hermeneutics in the late twentieth century, with many hybrids. Wesleyan scholars and academics largely absorbed the evangelical, contextual hermeneutic. For this group, we can hardly speak of a distinct Wesleyan strategy for finding the coherent meaning of Scripture, other than the fact that they looked at the biblical text with Wesleyan interests in mind. At the same time, perhaps the bulk of Wesleyans continued to interpret and integrate Scripture by defining the words and integrating them “as it seemed right in their own eyes,” eyes forged by Wesleyan sociology, using the inherent flexibility of words to make them take on meanings that could fit together and cohere with Wesleyan tradition.
[i] “On First Principles,” 18.
[ii] “On First Principles,” 19. When it comes to the law of Moses, Origen speaks of the “irrationality” and “impossibility” of observing many of the laws literally (“On First Principals,” 17).
[iii] “On Christian Doctrine,” 3.10.14.
[iv] How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 74.
[v] Is There a Meaning in This Text? 429.
[vi] Meaning, 415.
[vii] The Rise of the Evangelicals. The Scandal of the American Mind
[viii] ***
[ix] Frei.
[x] Dayton
[xi] Noll.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Randy Maddox at IWU
We were privileged to have Randy Maddox of Duke Divinity School here at IWU today for our Spring Religion colloquium. Ken Collins was here a few weeks ago for the Cox Holiness lectures, so we've feasted on Wesley scholars this semester.
But Maddox wasn't here to talk about holiness. Rather he spoke about Wesley and care for the world. Steve Conrad, a biology professor, responded.
Much of his presentation (which I think he just gave at WTS as well) had to do with the misperception that Judeo-Christian views have been the primary culprit behind negative attitudes and actions toward the environment. He showed that Christians in about five different disciplines have shown that this is not the case at all. For example, he argued that it was Frances Bacon in the 1500's who first interpreted the phrase "subdue" the earth in terms of domination, with industrialization therefore being very biblical...
I think almost all of us learned something about Wesley we didn't know. Wesley believed that in the eschaton all the beings of the world moved up the scale of being. So animals would be able to speak in heaven. We will become like the angels. Maddox's point was that it was very Wesleyan to take into account not just issues of the environment that affect humans but that God grace was on all, including the animal kingdom.
Some interesting side conversations were had. He seemed to differ somewhat with Mark Noll's precise sense of evangelical history and saw Don Dayton as the best push back on that score. I introduced the issue with my sense that Wesleyans didn't really start calling themselves evangelicals until the 50's (in other words, that we "became" neo-evangelicals but had not been engaged at all in the rhetoric of fundamentalism prior to that time).
Then Drury shared something about the Pilgrim Holiness Church I had never heard before. The leaders got down and prayed in the 50's about a controversial figure called Billy Graham, whether to identify or distinguish themselves from him. They decided to side with him. And thus the Pilgrim Holiness Church might be said to have become "evangelical." Of course it was also in the 1950's that Stephen Paine, clearly a neo-evangelical, introduced the word inerrant into the Wesleyan Methodist vocabulary.
Another point of difference between Maddox and Noll was on the topic of when science and faith really divorced in "faith-full" American Christianity (I'm refusing to use the word evangelical here). Noll dates it after the Civil War. Maddox thinks it is after WW1. My question was when science and faith will rejoin. He thought it was beginning to happen.
Another observation drawn had to do with the respective trajectories of Maddox and Ken Collins. Collins started out Catholic and so apparently emphasizes the Wesley the Protestant more. Collins is more of a historical theologian and so aims at appropriating Wesley as Wesley. Maddox started out Nazarene and so is more comfortable emphasizing the more "catholic" dimensions of Wesley, and as a constructive theologian is interested in appropriating Wesley for the church universal.
These are great days for IWU's intellect. I think its heart has always been good.
But Maddox wasn't here to talk about holiness. Rather he spoke about Wesley and care for the world. Steve Conrad, a biology professor, responded.
Much of his presentation (which I think he just gave at WTS as well) had to do with the misperception that Judeo-Christian views have been the primary culprit behind negative attitudes and actions toward the environment. He showed that Christians in about five different disciplines have shown that this is not the case at all. For example, he argued that it was Frances Bacon in the 1500's who first interpreted the phrase "subdue" the earth in terms of domination, with industrialization therefore being very biblical...
I think almost all of us learned something about Wesley we didn't know. Wesley believed that in the eschaton all the beings of the world moved up the scale of being. So animals would be able to speak in heaven. We will become like the angels. Maddox's point was that it was very Wesleyan to take into account not just issues of the environment that affect humans but that God grace was on all, including the animal kingdom.
Some interesting side conversations were had. He seemed to differ somewhat with Mark Noll's precise sense of evangelical history and saw Don Dayton as the best push back on that score. I introduced the issue with my sense that Wesleyans didn't really start calling themselves evangelicals until the 50's (in other words, that we "became" neo-evangelicals but had not been engaged at all in the rhetoric of fundamentalism prior to that time).
Then Drury shared something about the Pilgrim Holiness Church I had never heard before. The leaders got down and prayed in the 50's about a controversial figure called Billy Graham, whether to identify or distinguish themselves from him. They decided to side with him. And thus the Pilgrim Holiness Church might be said to have become "evangelical." Of course it was also in the 1950's that Stephen Paine, clearly a neo-evangelical, introduced the word inerrant into the Wesleyan Methodist vocabulary.
Another point of difference between Maddox and Noll was on the topic of when science and faith really divorced in "faith-full" American Christianity (I'm refusing to use the word evangelical here). Noll dates it after the Civil War. Maddox thinks it is after WW1. My question was when science and faith will rejoin. He thought it was beginning to happen.
Another observation drawn had to do with the respective trajectories of Maddox and Ken Collins. Collins started out Catholic and so apparently emphasizes the Wesley the Protestant more. Collins is more of a historical theologian and so aims at appropriating Wesley as Wesley. Maddox started out Nazarene and so is more comfortable emphasizing the more "catholic" dimensions of Wesley, and as a constructive theologian is interested in appropriating Wesley for the church universal.
These are great days for IWU's intellect. I think its heart has always been good.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Mark Noll at IWU
IWU was privileged today to have Mark Noll on campus. I was able to hear him in a luncheon and at a presentation on evangelical scholars in the field of history. He is a gentleman and a scholar, warm hearted, dare I say entirely sanctified :-)
Actually he confessed in an after lunch conversation that he prefers Charles Wesley to John :-)He also playfully noted his Calvinism--he knew his audience better than they knew themselves. Russ Gunsalus whispered to me after his presentation, "He knows his stuff."
That is not to say, of course, that his biases are not also apparent--he's aware of them himself, dare I say. I was not surprised to find Kuyper as an exemplary model of engagement with truth for its own sake coupled with a recognition that Christians are something different from the world. :-)
The main theme of the day was how to get more Christians in all disciplines--and Wesleyans--into the broader dialog of truth. He used the field of history, and Timothy Smith (a Nazarene, no less) and Marsden, as examples of a process that has taken years and years for evangelicals to get into the dialog.
I did have a chance after lunch to tell him playfully that he and Marsden were messing up my attempts to distinguish my revivalist forebears from fundamentalism. When I brought up Machen and asked him where he would fit in the revivalists, Pentecostals, and dispensationalists scheme, he answered that he didn't think of Machen as a fundamentalist. :-)
He was curious when someone mentioned we might start a seminary and inquired of where Wesleyan ministers currently went to seminary, what sort of seminary we might start, and so forth. I gave him a few stats:
Actually he confessed in an after lunch conversation that he prefers Charles Wesley to John :-)He also playfully noted his Calvinism--he knew his audience better than they knew themselves. Russ Gunsalus whispered to me after his presentation, "He knows his stuff."
That is not to say, of course, that his biases are not also apparent--he's aware of them himself, dare I say. I was not surprised to find Kuyper as an exemplary model of engagement with truth for its own sake coupled with a recognition that Christians are something different from the world. :-)
The main theme of the day was how to get more Christians in all disciplines--and Wesleyans--into the broader dialog of truth. He used the field of history, and Timothy Smith (a Nazarene, no less) and Marsden, as examples of a process that has taken years and years for evangelicals to get into the dialog.
I did have a chance after lunch to tell him playfully that he and Marsden were messing up my attempts to distinguish my revivalist forebears from fundamentalism. When I brought up Machen and asked him where he would fit in the revivalists, Pentecostals, and dispensationalists scheme, he answered that he didn't think of Machen as a fundamentalist. :-)
He was curious when someone mentioned we might start a seminary and inquired of where Wesleyan ministers currently went to seminary, what sort of seminary we might start, and so forth. I gave him a few stats:
- The Wesleyan Church has never had a seminary of its own, thus the rallying cry: "Real denominations have seminaries. Either we should found one or join a real denomination."
- And since he's now at Notre Dame, I also quoted the book of Sirach: "Call no one happy until he's dead." I won't say IWU is going to have a seminary until IWU has a seminary.
- Currently most Wesleyans who go to seminary go to Asbury, which over time has (in my opinion) been a very positive influence on the denomination. But interestingly enough, Princeton next year will have the second largest number of Wesleyans going to seminary.
Nice man, great scholar... but where is the Wesleyan that will look at these things with a more careful sense of distinctions important to us?
Monday, March 24, 2008
Monday Thoughts: My Take Away from Noll’s Scandal
I’m done with Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind and have had some time for things to percolate in my mind. Here are some thoughts:
1. I am appreciative of many areas where Noll has filled in history to which I have not paid much attention in the past. I will leave a question mark over some of it—where is spin I’m not equipped to recognize? But I would rather have a starter knowledge to edit later than have no knowledge at all.
2. I agree that the history of American Protestant Christian conservatism has been fairly anti-intellectual, particularly since the Civil War. Maybe it has always been since our colonist days because of the frontier personality.
Pragmatists came here and survived here, the kind of people who weren’t prone to value long standing traditions, do it yourself people. The most urgent truths are what are valued—what works, what will make it possible for my family to survive the winter? Typical US beginnings were by rough and ready individualists who didn’t let others tell them what to do—and that includes the Pope or some European church. Give me a Bible and I’ll tell you what God thinks.
The internet age has made it more difficult to hide from what the experts in any discipline are saying. But it's also not clear to me that the rising generations believe in experts. The sense is that truth is whatever works for me, a postmodern cultural Zeitgeist (not to be confused with some legitimate challenges from postmodern philosophy). Ironically, postmodernism has in part become the most recent excuse for anti-intellectualism among some pockets of conservative American Protestant Christianity.
3. Noll seems to me very modernist himself in many respects. Those who invoke him certainly are. I listen to us talk, we Christian "intellectuals” in conservative settings. So often the discussion is along the lines of the “ignorant masses” to whom we can offer so much in the way of truth. The problem is of course that so many of the views I hear espoused under this heading seem quite provisional themselves, to where our ignorance is only one step removed from those whom we ourselves criticize. (Physician, heal thyself)
We Christian thinkers need to be more humble in our truth assertions--especially as individuals but even as conservative or moderate groupings of thinkers. It’s “I don’t see how it could be otherwise, but I could be wrong.” It’s not “you're anti-intellectual if you don’t see things how I see them.”
I predict we’ll get over our fascination with subjectivism soon enough as a culture—including as a Christian culture—and start a new, chastened quest for objectivity in thinking. The postmodern critique is significant and valid. But the quest for truth will go on and over time the hypotheses that best account for the data will eliminate "cop out scholarship," scholarship that is not really interested in what is true but in applying one's intellect to support extreme minority or narcissistic positions.
4. Perhaps the most sobering thought I’ve had reading Noll is that the holiness/revivalist tradition isn't even at the table. People like Marsden and Noll have no reason to make careful distinctions when it comes to the history of my tradition. You can hardly blame them on one level.
Where are the holiness revivalist thinkers today? Is this sentence an oxymoron, to where the only way we can be thinkers is to abandon the holiness/revivalist part? Certainly Noll and Marsden think so.
Where is the standard Wesleyan-Arminian systematic theology to read? Where is the conglomeration of broader Wesleyan scholars presenting our take on church history, theology, and hermeneutics?
There are some broader Methodist voices in which I can see what such a movement might look like. They seem to be at Duke--people like Maddox, Hays, and Jones come to mind. But they are not dialoging with the holiness revivalist tradition. It is a Methodist seminary, and who of us is reading them with a view to our identity?
Asbury has had some lone scholars over the years. Bob Lyon more than anyone else probably brought about the de-Actsification of the holiness movement. But most of Asbury's people don't publish in a way that might create a movement in holiness revivalist circles (although Ken Collins would be a potential). And they also are primarily focused on things Methodist.
As far as the Wesleyan Church is concerned, there are no Leo Coxes today, no Wilbur Daytons or Melvin Dieters. Where even would an organized consortium of broader Wesleyan thinkers rise up from? Who among us is even recognized by broader scholarship as a voice for Wesleyan-Arminian thought?
Who will reach out to organize and mobilize us? Nazarene Theological Seminary? Do we even want to be mobilized as thinkers? Azusa won't, couldn't, even with a motivated David Wright as Dean. It's faculty are what so many faculties are--a bunch of individual lone rangers with no common cause and barely still in the holiness tradition. Wesley Biblical has great scholars, but they are not thought trailblazers. They are outstanding rear guard scholars.
I want to thank Keith Drury for providing me with a path to conceptualize my gnawing complaint with the way Marsden and Noll divide up early twentieth century conservative Christian history. First, I find it telling that the founding voices of fundamentalism do not fit into any of Mark Noll’s fundy categories: holiness revivalists, Pentecostals, and dispensationalists. It surely reveals a “fundamental” flaw in his history telling that the real movers and shakers of early twentieth century fundamentalism—people like J. Gresham Machen—do not fit into any of his categories.
The term Drury coined in his most recent Tuesday Column is “anti-modern.” Yes, my forebears were anti-modernist. They intuitively retreated into emotional experiences and end time scenarios to cope with the rapid secularization of America after the Civil War. They retreated from science and politics into countless little fragmented separatist groups.
But to call these groups "fundamentalists" is, I think, to assume that the standard of identity in play here is ideological. I don't think the key to understanding my forebears is to see them as retreating to the fundamental beliefs of Christianity. They were retreating to what they saw as the fundamental experiences of Christianity.
I would expect historians with Reformed backgrounds to lump together people based on their orientation toward ideas. But call the intellectual anti-modernists "fundamentalists," people like Machen. Then let the next generation of revivalist thinkers--if we can find them--put a head on my experiential and behavior-oriented ancestors.
Is there any church historian of the Wesleyan tradition who is looking for a dissertation topic? So many current intellectual developments open doors for our tradition—the new perspective on Judaism and Paul, the impossibility of meaning in a text alone, the postmodern critique of absolute rational certainty.
Who will marshal us together and mobilize us? Or is the holiness revivalist tradition so anti-intellectual that it cannot survive thinking? I don't think so. We just need a revival :-)
1. I am appreciative of many areas where Noll has filled in history to which I have not paid much attention in the past. I will leave a question mark over some of it—where is spin I’m not equipped to recognize? But I would rather have a starter knowledge to edit later than have no knowledge at all.
2. I agree that the history of American Protestant Christian conservatism has been fairly anti-intellectual, particularly since the Civil War. Maybe it has always been since our colonist days because of the frontier personality.
Pragmatists came here and survived here, the kind of people who weren’t prone to value long standing traditions, do it yourself people. The most urgent truths are what are valued—what works, what will make it possible for my family to survive the winter? Typical US beginnings were by rough and ready individualists who didn’t let others tell them what to do—and that includes the Pope or some European church. Give me a Bible and I’ll tell you what God thinks.
The internet age has made it more difficult to hide from what the experts in any discipline are saying. But it's also not clear to me that the rising generations believe in experts. The sense is that truth is whatever works for me, a postmodern cultural Zeitgeist (not to be confused with some legitimate challenges from postmodern philosophy). Ironically, postmodernism has in part become the most recent excuse for anti-intellectualism among some pockets of conservative American Protestant Christianity.
3. Noll seems to me very modernist himself in many respects. Those who invoke him certainly are. I listen to us talk, we Christian "intellectuals” in conservative settings. So often the discussion is along the lines of the “ignorant masses” to whom we can offer so much in the way of truth. The problem is of course that so many of the views I hear espoused under this heading seem quite provisional themselves, to where our ignorance is only one step removed from those whom we ourselves criticize. (Physician, heal thyself)
We Christian thinkers need to be more humble in our truth assertions--especially as individuals but even as conservative or moderate groupings of thinkers. It’s “I don’t see how it could be otherwise, but I could be wrong.” It’s not “you're anti-intellectual if you don’t see things how I see them.”
I predict we’ll get over our fascination with subjectivism soon enough as a culture—including as a Christian culture—and start a new, chastened quest for objectivity in thinking. The postmodern critique is significant and valid. But the quest for truth will go on and over time the hypotheses that best account for the data will eliminate "cop out scholarship," scholarship that is not really interested in what is true but in applying one's intellect to support extreme minority or narcissistic positions.
4. Perhaps the most sobering thought I’ve had reading Noll is that the holiness/revivalist tradition isn't even at the table. People like Marsden and Noll have no reason to make careful distinctions when it comes to the history of my tradition. You can hardly blame them on one level.
Where are the holiness revivalist thinkers today? Is this sentence an oxymoron, to where the only way we can be thinkers is to abandon the holiness/revivalist part? Certainly Noll and Marsden think so.
Where is the standard Wesleyan-Arminian systematic theology to read? Where is the conglomeration of broader Wesleyan scholars presenting our take on church history, theology, and hermeneutics?
There are some broader Methodist voices in which I can see what such a movement might look like. They seem to be at Duke--people like Maddox, Hays, and Jones come to mind. But they are not dialoging with the holiness revivalist tradition. It is a Methodist seminary, and who of us is reading them with a view to our identity?
Asbury has had some lone scholars over the years. Bob Lyon more than anyone else probably brought about the de-Actsification of the holiness movement. But most of Asbury's people don't publish in a way that might create a movement in holiness revivalist circles (although Ken Collins would be a potential). And they also are primarily focused on things Methodist.
As far as the Wesleyan Church is concerned, there are no Leo Coxes today, no Wilbur Daytons or Melvin Dieters. Where even would an organized consortium of broader Wesleyan thinkers rise up from? Who among us is even recognized by broader scholarship as a voice for Wesleyan-Arminian thought?
Who will reach out to organize and mobilize us? Nazarene Theological Seminary? Do we even want to be mobilized as thinkers? Azusa won't, couldn't, even with a motivated David Wright as Dean. It's faculty are what so many faculties are--a bunch of individual lone rangers with no common cause and barely still in the holiness tradition. Wesley Biblical has great scholars, but they are not thought trailblazers. They are outstanding rear guard scholars.
I want to thank Keith Drury for providing me with a path to conceptualize my gnawing complaint with the way Marsden and Noll divide up early twentieth century conservative Christian history. First, I find it telling that the founding voices of fundamentalism do not fit into any of Mark Noll’s fundy categories: holiness revivalists, Pentecostals, and dispensationalists. It surely reveals a “fundamental” flaw in his history telling that the real movers and shakers of early twentieth century fundamentalism—people like J. Gresham Machen—do not fit into any of his categories.
The term Drury coined in his most recent Tuesday Column is “anti-modern.” Yes, my forebears were anti-modernist. They intuitively retreated into emotional experiences and end time scenarios to cope with the rapid secularization of America after the Civil War. They retreated from science and politics into countless little fragmented separatist groups.
But to call these groups "fundamentalists" is, I think, to assume that the standard of identity in play here is ideological. I don't think the key to understanding my forebears is to see them as retreating to the fundamental beliefs of Christianity. They were retreating to what they saw as the fundamental experiences of Christianity.
I would expect historians with Reformed backgrounds to lump together people based on their orientation toward ideas. But call the intellectual anti-modernists "fundamentalists," people like Machen. Then let the next generation of revivalist thinkers--if we can find them--put a head on my experiential and behavior-oriented ancestors.
Is there any church historian of the Wesleyan tradition who is looking for a dissertation topic? So many current intellectual developments open doors for our tradition—the new perspective on Judaism and Paul, the impossibility of meaning in a text alone, the postmodern critique of absolute rational certainty.
Who will marshal us together and mobilize us? Or is the holiness revivalist tradition so anti-intellectual that it cannot survive thinking? I don't think so. We just need a revival :-)
Friday, March 14, 2008
Friday Review: Is the Reformation Over?, Chapter 5
In chapter 5 of Noll's book, he discusses "The Catholic Catechism." This is a 756 page document commissioned by Pope John Paul II in 1986 and completed in 1992. The length of it is a reflection of the difference between Protestant traditions and the Catholic tradition. The Wesleyan Articles of Religion are dramatically short in comparison.
Roman Catholics know what they believe. It is spelled out clearly. This is a compendium based on 2000 years of tradition. Catholic priests know the Fathers, they know the literature, they know it in Latin. There is no changing of their Discipline in the way you can, admittedly with some difficulty, change the faith of my denomination. They can only reinterpret and wiggle narrowly around a tradition that is pretty much set in stone.
That last paragraph is of course me rather than Noll and Nystrom.
To me this is the best laid out and written chapter thus far. It is mainly divided into 1) areas of agreement, 2) understanding differences, and 3) Catholics and the church.
1. Areas of Agreement
a. orthodoxy
In a powerful layout, Noll and Nystrom present quotations from the Catholic Catechism that together form a kind of creed in outline. In other words, they excerpt what looks pretty much like the faith statement of any Protestant denomination.
Here are a few of excerpts that caught my attention:
1. "God is the author of sacred Scripture ... the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/107.htm
2. "Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven" http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/618.htm
3. "Our justification comes from the grace of God." http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1996.htm
4. "Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man." http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/162.htm
b. devotion to God
Apparently, the Catholic Cathecism reads like a devotional book. Here is a Byzantine prayer of ordination that Noll and Nystrom cite as an example.
c. holy living
In this section Noll and Nystrom talk about Catholic expectations with regard to things like Sabbath, respect for human life, sexual ethics, marriage and divorce, social ethics, and sin. My parents' generation would resonate strongly with almost everything here. Ironically, the current state of my church, the Wesleyan Church, is far more liberal than anything here.
2. Understanding Differences
a. Authority
Perhaps the key difference between the RCC and most Protestant traditions is in the relationship between Scripture and tradition. Most Protestants at least claim (I deny that it is as much the case as they think) that for them Scripture is the supreme authority for doctrine and practice. Scripture is to interpret tradition rather than tradition interpreting Scripture.
By contrast the RCC not only sees tradition to be accepted and honored "with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence," but further, "the task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.
Those who know my hermeneutic will see an attempt to find a middle way between these two extremes. The typical Protestant equation is Scripture only (with unacknowledged traditions governing the way in which that Scripture is processed). The Catholic equation is Scripture and tradition as co-equal, with the Magisterium serving to arbitrate. My equation is to read Scripture with the eyes of the consensus of the church, with an eye to its original meaning and the moving of the Holy Spirit.
Where I thus differ from most Protestants is my acceptance that Scripture alone has no organizing principle by which to speak with a single voice. Further, we will not arrive at a Christian understanding of important doctrines like the Trinity or the dual nature of Christ without much that is not in Scripture.
I differ from Catholics in that the Western Church has not represented the church catholic for a 1000 years. Further, the Holy Spirit has seen fit to reverse consensus on a number of issues in the Reformation, using a crude yet appropriate measure of Scripture's original meaning. The consensus of the church is thus not static or absolute. Christ is the ultimate point to which reform might theoretically reverse before Christianity itself would deconstruct (at which point Christianity would revert to Judaism).
b. Mary
I will confess that I do not identify with the RC adoration of Mary. They do not worship Mary. She herself, though sinless, without original sin, and assumed directly to heaven, is these things because of the merits of Christ.
I'll need someone to show me why it is so bad to ask saints to help us. I don't do it. I don't feel the need to do it. I feel quite comfortable praying directly to the Father through Jesus. But prayer to Mary and saints seems more quirky to me than dangerous. Thoughts?
c. baptism
RCs of course baptize infants. Justification is a function of baptism. Faith follows rather than precedes. Baptism is considered essential for salvation, however, the current Catholic understanding holds out hope for unbaptized children. Limbo is not a current RC belief and never was an official belief.
Certainly the longest standing Protestant churches baptize infants: Lutherans, Reformed, Anglicans, Methodists. It is allowable even in the Wesleyan Church. However, it is allowable for Wesleyans on the assumption that baptism itself does not save. No Protestant would make a strict equation between baptism and justification.
d. salvation by works or grace
In this section Noll and Nystrom discuss the RC belief that a justified person might end up spending eternity in hell. They note that Wesleyan-Arminians agree. Calvinists of course disagree on this point.
Another point of difference is the typical Protestant sense that justification is an individual affair, while Catholics see the Church the way through which God justifies.
e. celibacy and saints
These are well known points of difference between Protestants and Catholics. Noll and Nystrom point out, however, how little is said in the new catechism about celibacy, almost as if it is something the Church has to live with because of the positions past Popes have taken.
The Catholic position on saints is also difficult for Protestants (and of course from a NT point of view). All Christians are saints, according to the NT.
f. sacraments
We've already mentioned transubstantiation and the sacraments in last Friday's post. There were some memorable lines in this section of this chapter, however:
"Many Catholics see Protestant worship services, when Communion is not celibrated, as little more than light religious entertainment accompanied by a motivational speaker" (144).
:-)
3. Catholics and the Church
Noll and Nystrom begin with what was apparently a common saying by Protestants in ecumenical dialog with Catholics: "The main difference between us and the Catholics is ecclesiology. They have one and we don't" (145). N & N end the chapter with this question: "Why do we not possess such a thorough, clear and God-centered account of our faith as the Catechism offers to Roman Catholics?" (150).
Here's my answer: Barth has written his; Tom Oden has written his; Jurgen Moltmann has written his. There is no single Protestant authority to write one. Of course the purist might say--we have had one for 2000 years... it's called the Bible. But as fun a retort as this is, I believe it is misguided. The Bible requires synthesis, interpretation, and appropriation such as the Catholic Catechism does for RCs.
However, I await someone to write an equivalent of the RC catechism that sets out the real consensus of the church with its variations. As usual, I am not qualified to write one, although I think I have some sense of what it would look like. It would sketch out all the areas that the vast majority of Christians have and continue to be in agreement. Then under each discussion it would catalog the points of disagreement.
This last paragraph suggests my agreement and disagreement with Catholic ecclesiology. The RC church considers itself the body of Christ. Its structure, its Pope and sacerdotal structure are the ligaments of that body. I am a separated brother.
With the smallest of changes, a perspective very similar and yet more appropriate comes into view. If the church be not identified with a specific ecclesiastical body on earth, we can nevertheless see the visible churches on earth as the visible body of Christ and the path through which God has primarily chosen to minister to His people.
That's this week's chapter review.
Roman Catholics know what they believe. It is spelled out clearly. This is a compendium based on 2000 years of tradition. Catholic priests know the Fathers, they know the literature, they know it in Latin. There is no changing of their Discipline in the way you can, admittedly with some difficulty, change the faith of my denomination. They can only reinterpret and wiggle narrowly around a tradition that is pretty much set in stone.
That last paragraph is of course me rather than Noll and Nystrom.
To me this is the best laid out and written chapter thus far. It is mainly divided into 1) areas of agreement, 2) understanding differences, and 3) Catholics and the church.
1. Areas of Agreement
a. orthodoxy
In a powerful layout, Noll and Nystrom present quotations from the Catholic Catechism that together form a kind of creed in outline. In other words, they excerpt what looks pretty much like the faith statement of any Protestant denomination.
Here are a few of excerpts that caught my attention:
1. "God is the author of sacred Scripture ... the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/107.htm
2. "Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven" http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/618.htm
3. "Our justification comes from the grace of God." http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1996.htm
4. "Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man." http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/162.htm
b. devotion to God
Apparently, the Catholic Cathecism reads like a devotional book. Here is a Byzantine prayer of ordination that Noll and Nystrom cite as an example.
c. holy living
In this section Noll and Nystrom talk about Catholic expectations with regard to things like Sabbath, respect for human life, sexual ethics, marriage and divorce, social ethics, and sin. My parents' generation would resonate strongly with almost everything here. Ironically, the current state of my church, the Wesleyan Church, is far more liberal than anything here.
2. Understanding Differences
a. Authority
Perhaps the key difference between the RCC and most Protestant traditions is in the relationship between Scripture and tradition. Most Protestants at least claim (I deny that it is as much the case as they think) that for them Scripture is the supreme authority for doctrine and practice. Scripture is to interpret tradition rather than tradition interpreting Scripture.
By contrast the RCC not only sees tradition to be accepted and honored "with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence," but further, "the task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.
Those who know my hermeneutic will see an attempt to find a middle way between these two extremes. The typical Protestant equation is Scripture only (with unacknowledged traditions governing the way in which that Scripture is processed). The Catholic equation is Scripture and tradition as co-equal, with the Magisterium serving to arbitrate. My equation is to read Scripture with the eyes of the consensus of the church, with an eye to its original meaning and the moving of the Holy Spirit.
Where I thus differ from most Protestants is my acceptance that Scripture alone has no organizing principle by which to speak with a single voice. Further, we will not arrive at a Christian understanding of important doctrines like the Trinity or the dual nature of Christ without much that is not in Scripture.
I differ from Catholics in that the Western Church has not represented the church catholic for a 1000 years. Further, the Holy Spirit has seen fit to reverse consensus on a number of issues in the Reformation, using a crude yet appropriate measure of Scripture's original meaning. The consensus of the church is thus not static or absolute. Christ is the ultimate point to which reform might theoretically reverse before Christianity itself would deconstruct (at which point Christianity would revert to Judaism).
b. Mary
I will confess that I do not identify with the RC adoration of Mary. They do not worship Mary. She herself, though sinless, without original sin, and assumed directly to heaven, is these things because of the merits of Christ.
I'll need someone to show me why it is so bad to ask saints to help us. I don't do it. I don't feel the need to do it. I feel quite comfortable praying directly to the Father through Jesus. But prayer to Mary and saints seems more quirky to me than dangerous. Thoughts?
c. baptism
RCs of course baptize infants. Justification is a function of baptism. Faith follows rather than precedes. Baptism is considered essential for salvation, however, the current Catholic understanding holds out hope for unbaptized children. Limbo is not a current RC belief and never was an official belief.
Certainly the longest standing Protestant churches baptize infants: Lutherans, Reformed, Anglicans, Methodists. It is allowable even in the Wesleyan Church. However, it is allowable for Wesleyans on the assumption that baptism itself does not save. No Protestant would make a strict equation between baptism and justification.
d. salvation by works or grace
In this section Noll and Nystrom discuss the RC belief that a justified person might end up spending eternity in hell. They note that Wesleyan-Arminians agree. Calvinists of course disagree on this point.
Another point of difference is the typical Protestant sense that justification is an individual affair, while Catholics see the Church the way through which God justifies.
e. celibacy and saints
These are well known points of difference between Protestants and Catholics. Noll and Nystrom point out, however, how little is said in the new catechism about celibacy, almost as if it is something the Church has to live with because of the positions past Popes have taken.
The Catholic position on saints is also difficult for Protestants (and of course from a NT point of view). All Christians are saints, according to the NT.
f. sacraments
We've already mentioned transubstantiation and the sacraments in last Friday's post. There were some memorable lines in this section of this chapter, however:
"Many Catholics see Protestant worship services, when Communion is not celibrated, as little more than light religious entertainment accompanied by a motivational speaker" (144).
:-)
3. Catholics and the Church
Noll and Nystrom begin with what was apparently a common saying by Protestants in ecumenical dialog with Catholics: "The main difference between us and the Catholics is ecclesiology. They have one and we don't" (145). N & N end the chapter with this question: "Why do we not possess such a thorough, clear and God-centered account of our faith as the Catechism offers to Roman Catholics?" (150).
Here's my answer: Barth has written his; Tom Oden has written his; Jurgen Moltmann has written his. There is no single Protestant authority to write one. Of course the purist might say--we have had one for 2000 years... it's called the Bible. But as fun a retort as this is, I believe it is misguided. The Bible requires synthesis, interpretation, and appropriation such as the Catholic Catechism does for RCs.
However, I await someone to write an equivalent of the RC catechism that sets out the real consensus of the church with its variations. As usual, I am not qualified to write one, although I think I have some sense of what it would look like. It would sketch out all the areas that the vast majority of Christians have and continue to be in agreement. Then under each discussion it would catalog the points of disagreement.
This last paragraph suggests my agreement and disagreement with Catholic ecclesiology. The RC church considers itself the body of Christ. Its structure, its Pope and sacerdotal structure are the ligaments of that body. I am a separated brother.
With the smallest of changes, a perspective very similar and yet more appropriate comes into view. If the church be not identified with a specific ecclesiastical body on earth, we can nevertheless see the visible churches on earth as the visible body of Christ and the path through which God has primarily chosen to minister to His people.
That's this week's chapter review.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Quotes from Mark Noll's Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
The reading group book of the semester at IWU is Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. His basic premise is, well, that there isn't one (or at least hasn't been since Jonathan Edwards, blessed be he). I find the book pretty disappointing, Foucaultian in its typologies, and more than anything else a Nietzschean attempt for the disempowered (intellectual wannabies within evangelicalism) to shame the empowered (the vulgar crowd that has control of the college purse strings).
Of course that is not to say that I disagree with everything in the book--not at all. That my revivalist past was frequently anti-intellectual, absolutely. That its values detracted from serious truth inquiry, absolutely. I don't think I'll be reviewing the book, although some uber-reflections may eventually percolate through my darkened mind.
Two quotes captured my attention today:
"Those who don't learn from the past are condemned to write end times books" (174).
Corollary: "God doesn't read prophesy books."
"[I]f evangelicals continue to be influenced by historicist dispensationalism ... there is little intellectual hope for the future" (173).
Interesting...
P.S. I had to laugh when he mentioned Frank Peretti as an example of the forces working against intellectual life among evangelicals. We have a bust of him as a "world changer" in our rotunda here :-)
Of course that is not to say that I disagree with everything in the book--not at all. That my revivalist past was frequently anti-intellectual, absolutely. That its values detracted from serious truth inquiry, absolutely. I don't think I'll be reviewing the book, although some uber-reflections may eventually percolate through my darkened mind.
Two quotes captured my attention today:
"Those who don't learn from the past are condemned to write end times books" (174).
Corollary: "God doesn't read prophesy books."
"[I]f evangelicals continue to be influenced by historicist dispensationalism ... there is little intellectual hope for the future" (173).
Interesting...
P.S. I had to laugh when he mentioned Frank Peretti as an example of the forces working against intellectual life among evangelicals. We have a bust of him as a "world changer" in our rotunda here :-)
Friday, March 07, 2008
Friday Review: Is the Reformation Over? Chapter 4
At long last I have finished chapter 4 of Mark Noll's book, Is the Reformation Over? By the way, Noll and Nystrom give their answer to the title question in this chapter: "On the basis of the ecumenical dialogues, can it be said that the Reformation is over? Probably not. But a once-yawning chasm has certainly narrowed" (114).
This chapter, "Ecumenical Dialogues," catalogs the dialogs between Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Evangelicals, Disciples of Christ, Methodists, Anglicans, Reformed, and Pentecostals over the years since Vatican 2. The results are increased understanding, even significant movement on the Catholic side, while of course each of these groups at the same time has retained its unique identity. No surprise there.
This is a long chapter and one not set out in a way that works well for me. Let me reformulate it for you.
Smaller Disagreements
Despite theological agreements and disagreements, we all know that division is often more a matter of little things that loom disproportionately large on the street.
Mary
Mary remains a point of contention between Protestant and Catholic. At the same time, Catholics have clarified these years that Mary is not a co-redeemer alongside Christ. She is not on a level with the three persons of the Trinity. She herself needed to be redeemed (although such redemption for them did not involve the forgiveness of sins--immaculate conception and all).
To me this is a small thing, no larger than my disagreement with Baptists over eternal security. I find RC (Roman Catholic) views here a historical eccentricity, but nothing to hate over or rail against.
Other Points of Disagreement
RC don't use birth control. They don't ordain women. Priests must remain celibate. Divorce is much more strictly regulated, as is marriage within Catholicism. They pray to saints to help them (they do not worship saints). On all these issues I disagree with the RCC along with most Protestants.
However, only the issue of women's ordination seems a point of serious difficulty to me. Because I believe the RCC is part of God's Church, I believe they will eventually ordain women, as will all other denominations eventually. These differences seem no greater than differences between various Protestant groups.
Significant Disagreements
Authority of the Pope
The authority of the Pope remains perhaps the most significant point of disagreement between Protestant and Catholic, in my view. On the one hand, the RCC has clarified that the Pope is not always authoritative. It is only when he speaks ex cathedra ("from the chair") in relation to matters of salvation. If I remember correctly, the previous Pope never spoke in this manner during his entire papacy. In other words, the RCC does not consider anything said or enacted by the previous Pope to be infallible.
Interestingly, the Anglican-Catholic dialog aimed at complete reunification, which of course did not take place. Issues like women in ministry, birth control, and divorce sunk the discussion. Interestingly enough, however, the Anglican Church was willing to say the following on the authority of the Pope:
"a primacy of the bishop of Rome is not contrary to the New Testament and is part of God's purpose regarding the Church's unity and catholicity, while admitting that the New Testament texts offer no sufficient basis for this ... We nevertheless agree that a universal primacy will be needed in a reunited Church and should appropriately be the primacy of the bishop of Rome" (quoted in Noll and Nystrom, 88).
The Role of the Bible
I have long gone on record in saying that the "emperor is wearing no clothes" when it comes to the issue of sola scriptura. John Piper clearly follows his own "magisterium" when it comes to interpreting the Bible--one that involves the Council of Augustine, Calvin, and Edwards.
The issue of the role of the Bible is thus not what so many Protestants beat their chests over. The issue is in reality two fold: 1) who decides what the authoritative interpretation of the Bible is and 2) to what degree do we allow for development of doctrine and practice beyond the Bible?
The RCC thus accepts the authority of the Bible just as sola scriptura Protestants do (which is not all Protestants--prima scriptura would be a better description of my own tradition). Where they differ is 1) where they locate the "magisterium" of interpretation and 2) the room they make for certain developments beyond the New Testament.
Agreement and Disagreement
Not all Protestant groups agree with one another. We thus find that on various issues some Protestants agree more with the RCC than others.
Justification
The single most significant document to be produced from the ecumenical discussions of the last forty years is the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification," signed October 31, 1999 between the RCC and the Lutherans. In it, Lutherans and Catholics agree on the doctrine of justification by faith! In other words, we can seriously ask whether the Protestant Reformation would have even happened if the RCC had been willing to accept this document 500 years ago!
Both sides agree:
"By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit ... Faith itself is God's gift ... Our new life is solely due to the forgiving and renewing mercy that God imparts as a gift and we receive in faith, and never can merit it in any way" (quoted on 109).
For any Wesleyans reading, it is noteworthy that on the points of tension that remained, our tradition sides more with the Catholics than with the Lutherans on the place of works in the life of a believer. We also disagree with both sides on the role of sin in the life of a believer, since we are more optimistic than even the Catholics about God's power in this area (and way more optimistic than the Lutherans).
Some (Anthony Lane, for example, in a CT article) have noted the absence of discussion of issues like indulgences, penance, and purgatory from the Catholic-Lutheran discussion, ongoing points of disagreement between most Protestants and Catholics.
Priesthood of Believers
Perhaps surprisingly, the RCC was willing to say this:
"All Christians are called to serve ... The goal of the ordained ministry is to serve this priesthood of all the faithful" (quoted on 88).
In other words, the RCC was willing to affirm the priesthood of all believers without denying the role of ordained ministry. Only the most low church Protestant denominations deny ordination as an appropriate practice for ministers, and on that topic they would disagree with the major players of Protestantism.
Certainly ordination is a sacrament for the RCC in a way that it is not in Protestant churches. Some groups also are more concerned about apostolic succession than others. Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed, and Methodists might claim it if they wanted to (although Methodists cheated a little--Wesley wasn't a bishop when he ordained the first bishops in America). By contrast, groups like the Baptists, Disciples of Christ, etc... create their ministers ex nihilo, in no historic connection to the apostles.
Yet the RCC was willing to admit that this succession was initially geographical and only later chronological: "The intention of the apostolic community in establishing ministries in other places was initially to establish collaborators rather than to choose successors: what began as an expansion of communion over distance became later on an expansion over time" (quoted on 87).
Sacraments
Most Protestants recognize two of the RC seven sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist. Of course, many Protestants would consider them ordinances rather than sacraments, memorials with no particular spiritual power. Many Protestant traditions strongly reject rebaptism, as the RCC does. In short, we find greater diversity among Protestants on this issue than at some points between Protestants and Catholics.
The doctrine of transubstantiation was of course a main concern. The RCC of course strongly maintains this doctrine. However, some of the concessions made, in my mind, amount to drawing no difference between them and Luther's consubstantial view, which in my mind is perfectly acceptable for Protestants.
Thus for RCs, transubstantiation does not imply a change of the material of bread and wine (in other words, you won't find physical flesh and blood in your stomach). It is rather a "sacramental presence in which God uses realities of this world to convey the realities of new creation." In my opinion, our scientific understanding of matter has morphed the RC view to where it is hardly any different from that of many Protestants.
Catholics also do not believe that baptism is essential for salvation, as most Protestants. They consider us "separated brethren" who will be saved, despite the fact that we are not with them as we ideally would be.
Burying the Historical Hatchet
A good deal of what is transpired these last forty years is the hitting of the reset button on the past sins of both sides. The RCC and the Lutherans both eliminated the anathemas and stark pronouncements against each other from the past. In short, forgiveness has been the name of the game. In addition to the Lutherans, some of the most intensive forgiveness has involved Pentecostals in Latin America.
Certainly there is a wide variety of perspectives within the RCC, including the ones that Protestants have traditionally railed against. Similarly, the old Protestant hatred of Catholics can still be found in many quarters, just as virulent as the Scots and English who burned Catholics at the stake.
In my view, if your heart is as my heart, then put your hand in mine. My tradition in many respects is closer to the Catholic tradition than it is to many Protestant groups.
This chapter, "Ecumenical Dialogues," catalogs the dialogs between Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Evangelicals, Disciples of Christ, Methodists, Anglicans, Reformed, and Pentecostals over the years since Vatican 2. The results are increased understanding, even significant movement on the Catholic side, while of course each of these groups at the same time has retained its unique identity. No surprise there.
This is a long chapter and one not set out in a way that works well for me. Let me reformulate it for you.
Smaller Disagreements
Despite theological agreements and disagreements, we all know that division is often more a matter of little things that loom disproportionately large on the street.
Mary
Mary remains a point of contention between Protestant and Catholic. At the same time, Catholics have clarified these years that Mary is not a co-redeemer alongside Christ. She is not on a level with the three persons of the Trinity. She herself needed to be redeemed (although such redemption for them did not involve the forgiveness of sins--immaculate conception and all).
To me this is a small thing, no larger than my disagreement with Baptists over eternal security. I find RC (Roman Catholic) views here a historical eccentricity, but nothing to hate over or rail against.
Other Points of Disagreement
RC don't use birth control. They don't ordain women. Priests must remain celibate. Divorce is much more strictly regulated, as is marriage within Catholicism. They pray to saints to help them (they do not worship saints). On all these issues I disagree with the RCC along with most Protestants.
However, only the issue of women's ordination seems a point of serious difficulty to me. Because I believe the RCC is part of God's Church, I believe they will eventually ordain women, as will all other denominations eventually. These differences seem no greater than differences between various Protestant groups.
Significant Disagreements
Authority of the Pope
The authority of the Pope remains perhaps the most significant point of disagreement between Protestant and Catholic, in my view. On the one hand, the RCC has clarified that the Pope is not always authoritative. It is only when he speaks ex cathedra ("from the chair") in relation to matters of salvation. If I remember correctly, the previous Pope never spoke in this manner during his entire papacy. In other words, the RCC does not consider anything said or enacted by the previous Pope to be infallible.
Interestingly, the Anglican-Catholic dialog aimed at complete reunification, which of course did not take place. Issues like women in ministry, birth control, and divorce sunk the discussion. Interestingly enough, however, the Anglican Church was willing to say the following on the authority of the Pope:
"a primacy of the bishop of Rome is not contrary to the New Testament and is part of God's purpose regarding the Church's unity and catholicity, while admitting that the New Testament texts offer no sufficient basis for this ... We nevertheless agree that a universal primacy will be needed in a reunited Church and should appropriately be the primacy of the bishop of Rome" (quoted in Noll and Nystrom, 88).
The Role of the Bible
I have long gone on record in saying that the "emperor is wearing no clothes" when it comes to the issue of sola scriptura. John Piper clearly follows his own "magisterium" when it comes to interpreting the Bible--one that involves the Council of Augustine, Calvin, and Edwards.
The issue of the role of the Bible is thus not what so many Protestants beat their chests over. The issue is in reality two fold: 1) who decides what the authoritative interpretation of the Bible is and 2) to what degree do we allow for development of doctrine and practice beyond the Bible?
The RCC thus accepts the authority of the Bible just as sola scriptura Protestants do (which is not all Protestants--prima scriptura would be a better description of my own tradition). Where they differ is 1) where they locate the "magisterium" of interpretation and 2) the room they make for certain developments beyond the New Testament.
Agreement and Disagreement
Not all Protestant groups agree with one another. We thus find that on various issues some Protestants agree more with the RCC than others.
Justification
The single most significant document to be produced from the ecumenical discussions of the last forty years is the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification," signed October 31, 1999 between the RCC and the Lutherans. In it, Lutherans and Catholics agree on the doctrine of justification by faith! In other words, we can seriously ask whether the Protestant Reformation would have even happened if the RCC had been willing to accept this document 500 years ago!
Both sides agree:
"By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit ... Faith itself is God's gift ... Our new life is solely due to the forgiving and renewing mercy that God imparts as a gift and we receive in faith, and never can merit it in any way" (quoted on 109).
For any Wesleyans reading, it is noteworthy that on the points of tension that remained, our tradition sides more with the Catholics than with the Lutherans on the place of works in the life of a believer. We also disagree with both sides on the role of sin in the life of a believer, since we are more optimistic than even the Catholics about God's power in this area (and way more optimistic than the Lutherans).
Some (Anthony Lane, for example, in a CT article) have noted the absence of discussion of issues like indulgences, penance, and purgatory from the Catholic-Lutheran discussion, ongoing points of disagreement between most Protestants and Catholics.
Priesthood of Believers
Perhaps surprisingly, the RCC was willing to say this:
"All Christians are called to serve ... The goal of the ordained ministry is to serve this priesthood of all the faithful" (quoted on 88).
In other words, the RCC was willing to affirm the priesthood of all believers without denying the role of ordained ministry. Only the most low church Protestant denominations deny ordination as an appropriate practice for ministers, and on that topic they would disagree with the major players of Protestantism.
Certainly ordination is a sacrament for the RCC in a way that it is not in Protestant churches. Some groups also are more concerned about apostolic succession than others. Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed, and Methodists might claim it if they wanted to (although Methodists cheated a little--Wesley wasn't a bishop when he ordained the first bishops in America). By contrast, groups like the Baptists, Disciples of Christ, etc... create their ministers ex nihilo, in no historic connection to the apostles.
Yet the RCC was willing to admit that this succession was initially geographical and only later chronological: "The intention of the apostolic community in establishing ministries in other places was initially to establish collaborators rather than to choose successors: what began as an expansion of communion over distance became later on an expansion over time" (quoted on 87).
Sacraments
Most Protestants recognize two of the RC seven sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist. Of course, many Protestants would consider them ordinances rather than sacraments, memorials with no particular spiritual power. Many Protestant traditions strongly reject rebaptism, as the RCC does. In short, we find greater diversity among Protestants on this issue than at some points between Protestants and Catholics.
The doctrine of transubstantiation was of course a main concern. The RCC of course strongly maintains this doctrine. However, some of the concessions made, in my mind, amount to drawing no difference between them and Luther's consubstantial view, which in my mind is perfectly acceptable for Protestants.
Thus for RCs, transubstantiation does not imply a change of the material of bread and wine (in other words, you won't find physical flesh and blood in your stomach). It is rather a "sacramental presence in which God uses realities of this world to convey the realities of new creation." In my opinion, our scientific understanding of matter has morphed the RC view to where it is hardly any different from that of many Protestants.
Catholics also do not believe that baptism is essential for salvation, as most Protestants. They consider us "separated brethren" who will be saved, despite the fact that we are not with them as we ideally would be.
Burying the Historical Hatchet
A good deal of what is transpired these last forty years is the hitting of the reset button on the past sins of both sides. The RCC and the Lutherans both eliminated the anathemas and stark pronouncements against each other from the past. In short, forgiveness has been the name of the game. In addition to the Lutherans, some of the most intensive forgiveness has involved Pentecostals in Latin America.
Certainly there is a wide variety of perspectives within the RCC, including the ones that Protestants have traditionally railed against. Similarly, the old Protestant hatred of Catholics can still be found in many quarters, just as virulent as the Scots and English who burned Catholics at the stake.
In my view, if your heart is as my heart, then put your hand in mine. My tradition in many respects is closer to the Catholic tradition than it is to many Protestant groups.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Friday Review: Is the Reformation Over? Chapter 3
This week we look at Mark Noll's third chapter, "Why Did Things Change?" In it he explores some of the events of the last fifty years that have tended to get Roman Catholics and Protestants talking to each other more. His ultimate explanation: "God willed the changes to take place" (59).
1. The single most important element in the change was of course Vatican II (1958-63) under Pope John XXIII. Here we Protestants were acknowledged as "brothers" (and sisters) for the first time since the Reformation. We are separated brothers to be sure, but brothers nonetheless. The RCC further took some of the blame in the rift of the Reformation.
David Well's put it like this: the changes of the council "rendered the vast majority of Protestant analysis of Catholic doctrine obsolete" (60).
The Decree on Ecumenism from the council opened up discussions with Protestants, one of the biggest results of which was the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" in 1999 between the RCC and the Lutherans.
The second Vatican council also placed new found emphasis on the laity as the people of God. Noll and Nystrom write, "To outsiders, these developments look like a Catholic acceptance of some aspects of the Protestant emphasis on the priesthood of all believers" (60).
2. In another section of this chapter, N & N discuss changes in World Christianity that have softened tensions between the RCC and Protestantism. One of the main ones is the rise of the charismatic movement in the two-thirds world. New music, worship focused on the affective, expressive spirituality were found to be in common no matter which church you belonged to. Suddenly Protestants and Catholics found themselves singing some of the same choruses.
Many women in the grass roots level have taken roles of leadership too. N & N suggest that these women have seemed to be far less preoccupied with drawing ecclesiastical boundaries as men (67).
3. Next they discuss changes in American politics. The election of JFK softened fears about a Catholic in office. Then his assassination made him an American hero that santified his catholicism in its train. I had not realized that George Washington had suppressed Guy Fawkes night. In England Guy Fawles night is a fun night where you create an effigy of Guy Fawkes and burn him. The guy tried to blow up Parliament in London. What did not click with me yesterday is that November 5 has an anti-catholic element to it.
Catholics and evangelicals in the trenches have increasingly found themselves on the same side of political issues on sex, national defense, and the economy. This has broken down walls too.
4. N & N also mention individuals who have worked to bridge gaps. Ironically (or was this an application), Noll mentions that Notre Dame has hired some of evangelicalisms brightest scholars (e.g., Plantinga). Of course then they hired him :-)
5. N & N also mention some growing appreciation of catholicism by Protestants. He mentions an article by Scot McNight on how many of his students over the years converted to catholicism.
6. They conclude by noting that not all have opened up. He mentions the famous anti-catholic Chick Tracks of the early 80's that could just as well have been written in the 1600's. The books have of course long since been exposed as fraudulent.
Like the political emails we all receive, they had no truth to them but played into the fears and biases of those who read them. Frankly, some of those tracks scarred the bejebers out of me in high school.
1. The single most important element in the change was of course Vatican II (1958-63) under Pope John XXIII. Here we Protestants were acknowledged as "brothers" (and sisters) for the first time since the Reformation. We are separated brothers to be sure, but brothers nonetheless. The RCC further took some of the blame in the rift of the Reformation.
David Well's put it like this: the changes of the council "rendered the vast majority of Protestant analysis of Catholic doctrine obsolete" (60).
The Decree on Ecumenism from the council opened up discussions with Protestants, one of the biggest results of which was the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" in 1999 between the RCC and the Lutherans.
The second Vatican council also placed new found emphasis on the laity as the people of God. Noll and Nystrom write, "To outsiders, these developments look like a Catholic acceptance of some aspects of the Protestant emphasis on the priesthood of all believers" (60).
2. In another section of this chapter, N & N discuss changes in World Christianity that have softened tensions between the RCC and Protestantism. One of the main ones is the rise of the charismatic movement in the two-thirds world. New music, worship focused on the affective, expressive spirituality were found to be in common no matter which church you belonged to. Suddenly Protestants and Catholics found themselves singing some of the same choruses.
Many women in the grass roots level have taken roles of leadership too. N & N suggest that these women have seemed to be far less preoccupied with drawing ecclesiastical boundaries as men (67).
3. Next they discuss changes in American politics. The election of JFK softened fears about a Catholic in office. Then his assassination made him an American hero that santified his catholicism in its train. I had not realized that George Washington had suppressed Guy Fawkes night. In England Guy Fawles night is a fun night where you create an effigy of Guy Fawkes and burn him. The guy tried to blow up Parliament in London. What did not click with me yesterday is that November 5 has an anti-catholic element to it.
Catholics and evangelicals in the trenches have increasingly found themselves on the same side of political issues on sex, national defense, and the economy. This has broken down walls too.
4. N & N also mention individuals who have worked to bridge gaps. Ironically (or was this an application), Noll mentions that Notre Dame has hired some of evangelicalisms brightest scholars (e.g., Plantinga). Of course then they hired him :-)
5. N & N also mention some growing appreciation of catholicism by Protestants. He mentions an article by Scot McNight on how many of his students over the years converted to catholicism.
6. They conclude by noting that not all have opened up. He mentions the famous anti-catholic Chick Tracks of the early 80's that could just as well have been written in the 1600's. The books have of course long since been exposed as fraudulent.
Like the political emails we all receive, they had no truth to them but played into the fears and biases of those who read them. Frankly, some of those tracks scarred the bejebers out of me in high school.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Friday Review: Is the Reformation Over? 3
Chapter 2 of Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom's book, Is the Reformation Over? is called "The Historic Standoff." In this chapter, Noll and Nystrom catalog the ongoing hostilities that have existed historically between Protestants and Catholics in the years prior to Vatican II.
1. The chapter begins as it ends: with pictures of the situation between Protestants and Catholics in the mid-twentieth century. This 1945 quote from Carl McIntyre captures the dominant Protestant tone of the last five hundred years: "the greatest enemy of freedom and liberty that the world has to face today is the Roman Catholic system. Yes, we have Communism in Russia and all that is involved there, but if one had to choose between the two ... one would be much better off in a communistic society than in a Roman Catholic Fascist set up" (38).
By the way, this election season--as all election seasons--is a golden time to be teaching philosophy. Election campaigns and logical fallacies almost go hand in hand. The favorite fallacy is of course the ad hominem fallacy where you attack the person rather than the position. The feeble of mind on both sides are currently being inundated with emails and phone calls of malarchy about how so and so is really Dr. Evil. You know, "Did you know that Joe Politician snuck out his/her window one Friday night in high school and attended a Hare Krishna rally (by the way, did you know that the Hare Krishna are secretly communist)."
Just remember--anyone who just buys whatever that email or phone call says is not a good thinker and is a dangerous voter. Your vote is not your vote but the vote of those who are manipulating you (and no doubt laughing about how stupid you are). A good thinker will assume that anything you receive in this format is false. Only things that are aired in a public forum where they can be critiqued by the opposition are truly trustworthy (which eliminates any number of radio and cable shows). "A word to the wise is sufficient"--no amount of words can convince the dimwitted.
To continue, President Truman's appointment of a representative to the Vatican in 1946 was similarly greeting with rumbles all along the Protestant spectrum. Etc... Most of the chapter is simply a compounding of evidence for what most of us already know--Protestants and Catholics have not gotten along well these last five hundred years. Even this week I heard of a casual conversation at Marion High School in which a Protestant student critiqued a Catholic student for his worship of Mary.
Of course Catholics are not supposed to worship Mary. What they really believe is that Mary and the saints help their prayers. I have no idea whether this is the case--and of course God doesn't really need any help hearing--but I don't find the view objectionable any more than the idea that God might use angels as intermediaries with the world. People get angry over these sorts of things because it's traditional to get angry over these things, not because there's anything substantial to get angry about.
2. Noll and Nystrom then go on to give some of the "long history" of evangelical-catholic fighting. Their summary of the rhetoric of the Reformation will sound very familiar:
Protestants about Catholics
Paul Dudley's 1750 legacy to Harvard provided for a lecture devoted to "detecting and convicting and exposing the Idolatry of the Romish Church, Their Tyranny, Usurpations, damnable Heresies, fatal Errors, abominable Superstitions, and other crying Wickednesses in their High Places; and Finally that the Church of Rome is that mystical Babylon, That Man of Sin, That apostate Church spoken of, in the New Testament" (43).
Noll and Nystrom tell how much flack Charles Hodge received in the 1800's when he, despite rejecting Roman Catholicism, considered Roman Catholic baptism to be legitimate, also assuming that there were some legitimate Christians who were also Roman Catholic.
4. The next section shows the connection that almost inevitably seems to be forged by the human animal between religion and civil concerns.
I might note that to the extent to which a person of professed faith connects their faith to specific political bodies, especially of a civil sort, to that extent I question the purity of their faith. A person who lock steps their faith to either the Democratic or Republican party for example, is in my mind a person whose faith is not pure, whose faith is syncretistic. They have let cultural matters spread like a cancer in their faith. Such people's faith changes with the tide of human affairs.
Noll and Nystrom give two exemplary quotes in this section:
The first is from George Whitefield, who preached a sermon in 1746 Philadelphia thanking God for rescuing the British from the "Catholic monarchy" by leading the British to vanquish Bonnie Prince Charlie in Scotland:
"How soon would our pulpits every where have been filled with these old antichristian doctrines, free-will, meriting by works, transubstantiation, purgatory, works of supererogation, passive-obedience, non-resistance, and all the other abominations of the whore of Babylon" (46).
The second is a 1756 quote from Aaron Burr Sr., president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton:
"We have heard of the Policy and Perfidy of France, of her arbitrary Power, Popish tyranny and Bigotry... Their established religion is Popery; which, beside all its other Corruptions, disposes them from Principle, to be cruel to Protestants."
This section gives many other examples during the times of the Civil War where such rhetoric associating Catholicism with tyranny and anti-democratic rhetoric was used.
5. Occasional Nice-Nice
Toward the end of the chapter, Noll and Nystrom do show occasionally moments when Protestants and Catholics were more hospitable to each other.
For example, I had never heard of the Council of Regensburg in 1541, where a group of Protestant and Catholic leaders sat down and actually reached an agreement on the issue of justification by faith. Even John Calvin admitted that something significant had occurred. Of course the Council of Trent in the late 1540's would seal the separation from the Catholic side, if it was not already sealed from the Protestant side.
Protestants have continued to read Catholic authors. Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas a Kempis were read by individuals like Martin Luther and John Wesley. Even after the split, people like George Whitefield, John Newton, and Charles Wesley read Blaise Pascal, a Catholic. Evangelicals read post split Catholic mystics like Francois Fenelon and Madam Guyon.
We Wesleyans know that John Wesley used some of the same harsh language against the Roman Church as others, but Noll and Nystrom choose to highlight his indictment of those who utterly destroy brotherly love in their abominable polemics toward it.
Meanwhile, Roman Catholics have also from time to time admired Protestant thinkers as well. A Catholic periodical in Munich in the mid-1800's praised the Protestant Francois Guizot's historical accuracy, adding the words that "one is often astonished" at his fairness (51).
Kenneth Scott Latourette's 1949 presidential address to the American Historical Association was scorned by most, but praised by Catholic priests present with the remark, "the theology was perfect."
We end the review of chapter 2 with this comment by the notorious Cardinal John Henry Newman, who famously converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in the late 1800's:
"I can but bow before the great mystery that those are divided here [Protestant and Catholic] and look for the means of grace and glory in such different directions, who have so much in common in faith and hope" (55).
1. The chapter begins as it ends: with pictures of the situation between Protestants and Catholics in the mid-twentieth century. This 1945 quote from Carl McIntyre captures the dominant Protestant tone of the last five hundred years: "the greatest enemy of freedom and liberty that the world has to face today is the Roman Catholic system. Yes, we have Communism in Russia and all that is involved there, but if one had to choose between the two ... one would be much better off in a communistic society than in a Roman Catholic Fascist set up" (38).
By the way, this election season--as all election seasons--is a golden time to be teaching philosophy. Election campaigns and logical fallacies almost go hand in hand. The favorite fallacy is of course the ad hominem fallacy where you attack the person rather than the position. The feeble of mind on both sides are currently being inundated with emails and phone calls of malarchy about how so and so is really Dr. Evil. You know, "Did you know that Joe Politician snuck out his/her window one Friday night in high school and attended a Hare Krishna rally (by the way, did you know that the Hare Krishna are secretly communist)."
Just remember--anyone who just buys whatever that email or phone call says is not a good thinker and is a dangerous voter. Your vote is not your vote but the vote of those who are manipulating you (and no doubt laughing about how stupid you are). A good thinker will assume that anything you receive in this format is false. Only things that are aired in a public forum where they can be critiqued by the opposition are truly trustworthy (which eliminates any number of radio and cable shows). "A word to the wise is sufficient"--no amount of words can convince the dimwitted.
To continue, President Truman's appointment of a representative to the Vatican in 1946 was similarly greeting with rumbles all along the Protestant spectrum. Etc... Most of the chapter is simply a compounding of evidence for what most of us already know--Protestants and Catholics have not gotten along well these last five hundred years. Even this week I heard of a casual conversation at Marion High School in which a Protestant student critiqued a Catholic student for his worship of Mary.
Of course Catholics are not supposed to worship Mary. What they really believe is that Mary and the saints help their prayers. I have no idea whether this is the case--and of course God doesn't really need any help hearing--but I don't find the view objectionable any more than the idea that God might use angels as intermediaries with the world. People get angry over these sorts of things because it's traditional to get angry over these things, not because there's anything substantial to get angry about.
2. Noll and Nystrom then go on to give some of the "long history" of evangelical-catholic fighting. Their summary of the rhetoric of the Reformation will sound very familiar:
Protestants about Catholics
- salvation by good works
- don't let common person read Bible
- manufactured saints and rites over Bible
- made Mary a coauthor of salvation
- forced new doctrines at the whim of popes and councils
- promoted a corrupting, despotic power structure
- their salvation by faith denied the need for holiness before God
- let any Tom, Dick, and Mary come up with their own interpretation of the Bible
- denied the Holy Spirit reveals things in church times as well as Bible times
- denied God's gracious help through Mary and the saints
- rejected apostolic authority in preference for rationalism and moral anarchy
- foolishly neglected God's gracious help through the seven sacraments
- chose individualism over genuine church leadership
Paul Dudley's 1750 legacy to Harvard provided for a lecture devoted to "detecting and convicting and exposing the Idolatry of the Romish Church, Their Tyranny, Usurpations, damnable Heresies, fatal Errors, abominable Superstitions, and other crying Wickednesses in their High Places; and Finally that the Church of Rome is that mystical Babylon, That Man of Sin, That apostate Church spoken of, in the New Testament" (43).
Noll and Nystrom tell how much flack Charles Hodge received in the 1800's when he, despite rejecting Roman Catholicism, considered Roman Catholic baptism to be legitimate, also assuming that there were some legitimate Christians who were also Roman Catholic.
4. The next section shows the connection that almost inevitably seems to be forged by the human animal between religion and civil concerns.
I might note that to the extent to which a person of professed faith connects their faith to specific political bodies, especially of a civil sort, to that extent I question the purity of their faith. A person who lock steps their faith to either the Democratic or Republican party for example, is in my mind a person whose faith is not pure, whose faith is syncretistic. They have let cultural matters spread like a cancer in their faith. Such people's faith changes with the tide of human affairs.
Noll and Nystrom give two exemplary quotes in this section:
The first is from George Whitefield, who preached a sermon in 1746 Philadelphia thanking God for rescuing the British from the "Catholic monarchy" by leading the British to vanquish Bonnie Prince Charlie in Scotland:
"How soon would our pulpits every where have been filled with these old antichristian doctrines, free-will, meriting by works, transubstantiation, purgatory, works of supererogation, passive-obedience, non-resistance, and all the other abominations of the whore of Babylon" (46).
The second is a 1756 quote from Aaron Burr Sr., president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton:
"We have heard of the Policy and Perfidy of France, of her arbitrary Power, Popish tyranny and Bigotry... Their established religion is Popery; which, beside all its other Corruptions, disposes them from Principle, to be cruel to Protestants."
This section gives many other examples during the times of the Civil War where such rhetoric associating Catholicism with tyranny and anti-democratic rhetoric was used.
5. Occasional Nice-Nice
Toward the end of the chapter, Noll and Nystrom do show occasionally moments when Protestants and Catholics were more hospitable to each other.
For example, I had never heard of the Council of Regensburg in 1541, where a group of Protestant and Catholic leaders sat down and actually reached an agreement on the issue of justification by faith. Even John Calvin admitted that something significant had occurred. Of course the Council of Trent in the late 1540's would seal the separation from the Catholic side, if it was not already sealed from the Protestant side.
Protestants have continued to read Catholic authors. Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas a Kempis were read by individuals like Martin Luther and John Wesley. Even after the split, people like George Whitefield, John Newton, and Charles Wesley read Blaise Pascal, a Catholic. Evangelicals read post split Catholic mystics like Francois Fenelon and Madam Guyon.
We Wesleyans know that John Wesley used some of the same harsh language against the Roman Church as others, but Noll and Nystrom choose to highlight his indictment of those who utterly destroy brotherly love in their abominable polemics toward it.
Meanwhile, Roman Catholics have also from time to time admired Protestant thinkers as well. A Catholic periodical in Munich in the mid-1800's praised the Protestant Francois Guizot's historical accuracy, adding the words that "one is often astonished" at his fairness (51).
Kenneth Scott Latourette's 1949 presidential address to the American Historical Association was scorned by most, but praised by Catholic priests present with the remark, "the theology was perfect."
We end the review of chapter 2 with this comment by the notorious Cardinal John Henry Newman, who famously converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in the late 1800's:
"I can but bow before the great mystery that those are divided here [Protestant and Catholic] and look for the means of grace and glory in such different directions, who have so much in common in faith and hope" (55).
Friday, January 04, 2008
Friday Review: Is the Reformation Over? 2
In his first chapter, Noll and Nystrom present evidence that "Things Are Not As They Used to Be."
The first contestant was Billy Graham, whose organization in the 50's thought it ridiculous to suggest that they would send decision cards to local Roman Catholic churches. Now they do. In fact, Graham met with Pope John Paul II and has been supported by the Vatican. As one bishop put it, "I wish I could get more Catholics to have such enthusiasm for their faith in Christ" and as Graham put it in 1964, he felt "much closer to Roman Catholic tradition than to some of the more liberal Protestants."
Mention of the change in political climate from 1960, when evangelicals vigorously opposed J. F. K. as President to today where Catholics and evangelicals cooperate strongly in the pro-life movement. Noll and Nystrom quote Gary Bauer remarking on the amazing turn around in evangelical-catholic cooperation now in comparison to attitudes at the time of JKF.
The next section gives instances of the Vatican inviting evangelicals to come. In particular, they note Catholic praise for the InterVarsity Press Ancient Christian Commentary series. As of 2004, 20% of sales were to Catholics. The RCC (Roman Catholic Church) has also praised and supported the charismatic leaning Alpha Course.
Local cooperation is even greater. Hyms, worship songs, Christian music has no clear boundary. Evangelicals like Michael Card. Catholics sing Wesley and Watts' hymns--even Luther's "A Mighty Fortress." "[A] remarkable 50 percent of American Catholics provided the 'evangelical' response to at least three of the four indicators; 13 percent of the Americans who affirmed all four evangelical markers were Roman Catholic" (23). Catholics are reading evangelicals like Max Lucado and Richard Foster. Protestants are reading Catholics like Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen.
Gone are the days of separate Catholic and Protestant scholarship. Gone are the days when Catholics could only read the Douay-Rheims English translation. Gone are the days when Martin Luther is decried by Catholics as "a lewd satyr whose glandular demands were the ultimate cause of his break with the Christian Church" (quoted on 25). Catholics celebrated the 450th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession and the 500th anniversary of Luther's birthday. As one Catholic put it, Luther "could not, of course, have foreseen that the Church of Rome would some four centuries later, at Vatican Council II, adopt many of the reforms that he championed" (quoted on 27).
Catholic-evangelical relations are not moving together as quickly in some other parts of the world (e.g., Latin America). But Noll and Nystrom's book, published in 2005, clearly show that relations in general improved significantly under John Paul II. Of course the RC Church is the RC Church. As Piper pointed out in one of his chapters, there remain significant distinctions. But there are significant distinctions between Wesleyans and Presbyterians too.
For my part, it is very easy for me to include my Catholic brothers and sisters within the kingdom of God. The Pope is the bishop of Rome, the most significant bishop in the world at present. Can he make infallible pronouncements? I do not believe he can on the basis of his office or declaration of ex cathedra. But I believe that any Christian can make an infallible pronouncement when they are speaking by the Holy Spirit.
The RCC considers me a "separated brother" because I am not a part of the one true church. Do I begrudge them that? Of course not. They are simply following through on their theology--it's not personal. I am at peace with God and couldn't care less where their theology places me in relation to them. I am not bothered that a United Pentecostal would not consider me quite a Christian because I don't speak in tongues. I am neither offended nor bothered by the playing out of others' theology, except of course when such ideas hurt others (and of course ideas can hurt others).
But if a Roman Catholic has genuine faith in Christ and submits to his lordship in every way they know how, then they are as much a Christian as I or any other believer.
The former archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, suggested that a phrase from the Second Vatican Council's "Decree on Ecumenism" points to the way forward--and I would say not just between Roman Catholics and Protestants but also between Protestant denominations. The phrase is "a hierarchy of truths." In other words, none of us should give up our distinctives--that would just lead to a melange of gray.
But there is a great deal that all the Christian traditions hold in common--and I would say unofficially a very great deal that all truly converted Christians hold in common beyond the official statements of the churches they are in.
The chapter ends with comments by J. I. Packer in which he expresses his amazement at how the Catholic situation had changed within his lifetime. The spark for his comments was a 1980's book titled, The Born-Again Catholic. Packer concludes, "Things are not as they were!"
The first contestant was Billy Graham, whose organization in the 50's thought it ridiculous to suggest that they would send decision cards to local Roman Catholic churches. Now they do. In fact, Graham met with Pope John Paul II and has been supported by the Vatican. As one bishop put it, "I wish I could get more Catholics to have such enthusiasm for their faith in Christ" and as Graham put it in 1964, he felt "much closer to Roman Catholic tradition than to some of the more liberal Protestants."
Mention of the change in political climate from 1960, when evangelicals vigorously opposed J. F. K. as President to today where Catholics and evangelicals cooperate strongly in the pro-life movement. Noll and Nystrom quote Gary Bauer remarking on the amazing turn around in evangelical-catholic cooperation now in comparison to attitudes at the time of JKF.
The next section gives instances of the Vatican inviting evangelicals to come. In particular, they note Catholic praise for the InterVarsity Press Ancient Christian Commentary series. As of 2004, 20% of sales were to Catholics. The RCC (Roman Catholic Church) has also praised and supported the charismatic leaning Alpha Course.
Local cooperation is even greater. Hyms, worship songs, Christian music has no clear boundary. Evangelicals like Michael Card. Catholics sing Wesley and Watts' hymns--even Luther's "A Mighty Fortress." "[A] remarkable 50 percent of American Catholics provided the 'evangelical' response to at least three of the four indicators; 13 percent of the Americans who affirmed all four evangelical markers were Roman Catholic" (23). Catholics are reading evangelicals like Max Lucado and Richard Foster. Protestants are reading Catholics like Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen.
Gone are the days of separate Catholic and Protestant scholarship. Gone are the days when Catholics could only read the Douay-Rheims English translation. Gone are the days when Martin Luther is decried by Catholics as "a lewd satyr whose glandular demands were the ultimate cause of his break with the Christian Church" (quoted on 25). Catholics celebrated the 450th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession and the 500th anniversary of Luther's birthday. As one Catholic put it, Luther "could not, of course, have foreseen that the Church of Rome would some four centuries later, at Vatican Council II, adopt many of the reforms that he championed" (quoted on 27).
Catholic-evangelical relations are not moving together as quickly in some other parts of the world (e.g., Latin America). But Noll and Nystrom's book, published in 2005, clearly show that relations in general improved significantly under John Paul II. Of course the RC Church is the RC Church. As Piper pointed out in one of his chapters, there remain significant distinctions. But there are significant distinctions between Wesleyans and Presbyterians too.
For my part, it is very easy for me to include my Catholic brothers and sisters within the kingdom of God. The Pope is the bishop of Rome, the most significant bishop in the world at present. Can he make infallible pronouncements? I do not believe he can on the basis of his office or declaration of ex cathedra. But I believe that any Christian can make an infallible pronouncement when they are speaking by the Holy Spirit.
The RCC considers me a "separated brother" because I am not a part of the one true church. Do I begrudge them that? Of course not. They are simply following through on their theology--it's not personal. I am at peace with God and couldn't care less where their theology places me in relation to them. I am not bothered that a United Pentecostal would not consider me quite a Christian because I don't speak in tongues. I am neither offended nor bothered by the playing out of others' theology, except of course when such ideas hurt others (and of course ideas can hurt others).
But if a Roman Catholic has genuine faith in Christ and submits to his lordship in every way they know how, then they are as much a Christian as I or any other believer.
The former archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, suggested that a phrase from the Second Vatican Council's "Decree on Ecumenism" points to the way forward--and I would say not just between Roman Catholics and Protestants but also between Protestant denominations. The phrase is "a hierarchy of truths." In other words, none of us should give up our distinctives--that would just lead to a melange of gray.
But there is a great deal that all the Christian traditions hold in common--and I would say unofficially a very great deal that all truly converted Christians hold in common beyond the official statements of the churches they are in.
The chapter ends with comments by J. I. Packer in which he expresses his amazement at how the Catholic situation had changed within his lifetime. The spark for his comments was a 1980's book titled, The Born-Again Catholic. Packer concludes, "Things are not as they were!"
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Review 1: Introduction to Mark Noll's Is the Reformation Over?
For the next couple weeks, I hope to review Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom's 2005 book Is the Reformation Over? (see link at the side) Noll was a Wheaton professor at the time of the debacle over an Episcopalian professor of medieval history converting to catholicism. The individual in question was forced to resign. Noll has since moved to Notre Dame.
As far as I know, he continues to identify himself as a Protestant evangelical.
Indeed, in the Introduction he makes it clear that he and Nystrom are examining developments in Roman Catholicism from an evangelical perspective. In other words, the book uses evangelical canons to evaluate whether catholicism fits. The book does not evaluate the canons of evangelicalism themselves (at least this is my impression from the introduction).
Aims of the Book
The book is clear in the Introduction about the two goals of the book:
1. To survey the evidence for active and vital Christianity within the contemporary Roman Catholic Church and
2. To evaluate that evidence with as much discernment as possible.
The Canons of Evangelicalism
Noll and Nystrom use the four markers of evangelical identity proposed by David Bebbington (Evangelicalism in Modern Britain) as the basis of their evaluation:
1. Authority of Scripture
2. Personal Conversion
3. Importance of Evangelism
4. Centrality of the Cross
At the same time, Noll and Nystrom mention three battle cries of the Reformation as criteria as well, which they identify in the following ways (these are all Reformation themes to be sure, sola gratia and sola Christi are sometimes mentioned as well):
sola scriptura--the supreme authority of Scripture
sola fide--salvation by grace alone through faith alone
priesthood of all believers--corrective to the corruption of medieval catholic priesthood
Well see what we think of what they've come up with. They provide some interesting statistics about changes in Canada in relation to Catholicism in this introduction. They begin with a quote from 1873 where Catholicism is decried as a worse enemy of living Christianity than atheism. They go on to speak of charismatic and evangelical movements within Canadian Catholicism today, where 1/4 of Canadian Christians agree with all four of the evangelical benchmarks above and 34% more with three of the four.
D.v. ("Lord willing"), chapter 1 tomorrow...
As far as I know, he continues to identify himself as a Protestant evangelical.
Indeed, in the Introduction he makes it clear that he and Nystrom are examining developments in Roman Catholicism from an evangelical perspective. In other words, the book uses evangelical canons to evaluate whether catholicism fits. The book does not evaluate the canons of evangelicalism themselves (at least this is my impression from the introduction).
Aims of the Book
The book is clear in the Introduction about the two goals of the book:
1. To survey the evidence for active and vital Christianity within the contemporary Roman Catholic Church and
2. To evaluate that evidence with as much discernment as possible.
The Canons of Evangelicalism
Noll and Nystrom use the four markers of evangelical identity proposed by David Bebbington (Evangelicalism in Modern Britain) as the basis of their evaluation:
1. Authority of Scripture
2. Personal Conversion
3. Importance of Evangelism
4. Centrality of the Cross
At the same time, Noll and Nystrom mention three battle cries of the Reformation as criteria as well, which they identify in the following ways (these are all Reformation themes to be sure, sola gratia and sola Christi are sometimes mentioned as well):
sola scriptura--the supreme authority of Scripture
sola fide--salvation by grace alone through faith alone
priesthood of all believers--corrective to the corruption of medieval catholic priesthood
Well see what we think of what they've come up with. They provide some interesting statistics about changes in Canada in relation to Catholicism in this introduction. They begin with a quote from 1873 where Catholicism is decried as a worse enemy of living Christianity than atheism. They go on to speak of charismatic and evangelical movements within Canadian Catholicism today, where 1/4 of Canadian Christians agree with all four of the evangelical benchmarks above and 34% more with three of the four.
D.v. ("Lord willing"), chapter 1 tomorrow...
Friday, October 26, 2007
Friday Review: The Civil War as a Theological Crisis
A friend of mine put me on to a chapter in Mark Noll's book, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis. The chapter was "The Crisis over the Bible." What a salacious read! I'll start with a summary, but you'll see why I enjoyed it in my description. The chapter relates to the debate over what the Bible might have to say on the subject of slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War.
1. First, it was easy for those in favor of slavery to point to individuals like William Lloyd Garrison, who basically argued that there were times when discarding a portion of Scripture was the highest evidence of a love for truth. Garrison's presumption here was that the Bible did indeed endorse slavery, but a love of the truth lead one to disregard its teaching on this subject.
This argument of course empowered pro-slavery Christians, for they could use Garrison to argue that all those who were against slavery were godless people who didn't believe in the Bible.
2. Second, the pro-slavery Christians had many, many specific verses to use in their favor. As Noll says, "open the Bible, read it, believe it."
Lev. 25:45-46a: "the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever."
Philemon: Paul instructs an escaped slave to return to his master.
Gen. 9:25-27: "Cursed be Canaan... Canaan shall be his servant." In other words, Ham's descendents were to be the slaves of Noah's two other sons. It was a common belief at that time that the peoples of Africa were the descendents of these.
Gen. 17:22: "he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger" [shall be circumcised].
Deuteronomy 20:10-11: "When thou goest forth to war... and thou hast taken them captive..."
Jesus: abrogated many OT regulations like polygamy and easy divorce--but never said a word against slaveholding.
1 Cor. 7:11--"Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it..."
Rom. 13:1, 7--"Be subject to the higher powers." Paul tells them to conform to the Roman imperial system, which had a harsh system of slaveholding.
Col. 3:22; 4:1--"Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh." Paul does not question the master-slave relationship.
1 Tim. 6:1-2--"servants under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour... they that have believing masters, let them not despise them." Conversion of slaves did not provide cause for emancipation.
These verses were used by Thomas Thompson to support the slave trade in the early 1770's biblically.
3. Third, Noll mentions two defining moments in the early 1800's:
There was a fair debate between one Richard Fuller and Francis Wayland in 1844. Fuller vigorously defended slavery biblically, although he conceded that there were many abuses in the South. Here was Fuller's bottom line: Wayland "admits that neither the Saviour nor his apostles commanded masters to emancipate their slaves; nay, they 'go further,' he adds, 'and prescribe the duties, be it remembered, there is not an intimation of manumission, but the whole code contemplates the continuation of the relation."
So how, Fuller asked, can Wayland argue in general that the moral precepts of the gospel condemn slavery? Wayland was arguing that slavery went against the overall principles of the gospel. Meanwhile, Fuller hammered him with specific verses.
A second defining moment came from Moses Stuart. Stuart believed that Southern Christians, while not compelled, should give up slavery voluntarily. He did not think, for many of the biblical reasons quoted above, that slavery was an evil in and of itself. He simply believed that working out the principles of the gospel would eventually result in the gradual elimination of the practice.
Noll ends this section with some quotes from pro-slavery advocates who said things like that "we have long since settled" the biblical sanction of slavery, descriptions of the cause of slavery as "the cause of God, the cause of Christ ... of Bible with Northern infidelity -- of pure Chrisitianity."
I might also add that the Southern Baptist Convention was founded in opposition to a ruling of the American Baptist Missionary Union in 1844 resolved that it would not appoint slaveholders as missionaries. So the Southern Baptist Convention was formed on the basis of an ardent pro-slavery stance.
4. Those who were against slavery seemed to draw as much on common sense and the basic republican principles on which America was founded ("all men are created equal") as on specific biblical texts: "the principles of the Bible are justice and righteousness." They argued for the "one-bloodism" of humankind (e.g., Acts 17:26).
Beautifully, the most powerful rhetoric against slavery came from the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin! Here a slave owner is depicted as saying that if suddenly owning slaves were to become a great financial burden, the slave owners would all immediately "discover" that the Bible was clearly against slavery. The impression is given that the Bible is easily manipulated to prove anything.
The verse debate is captured as one person quotes about Canaan and another responds "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them." As usual, specific verse goes against basic principle.
In one of the more memorable scenes, a Senator in favor of the Compromise of 1850 (States can declare themselves free but agree to return escaped slaves to the South) is convinced by his wife that he can't return a runaway slave to the South. In the actual situation, he recognizes that what seemed a good theory is wrong in practice.
Some also argued against slavery by arguing for the priority of the spirit over the letter. Noll mentions a man named Leonard Bacon who would have been glad to oppose slavery if he could have justified that position biblically. But he concluded that the spirit over the letter argument did great damage to the Scriptures. He ended up condemning slavery as it was practiced in the South.
5. There were some more nuanced biblical arguments against slavery.
David Barrow pointed out that the comparison between Canaan and Africans didn't follow. Southern slave owners weren't Hebrews and the Africans weren't Canaanites.
Exod. 21:27 says that a slave should be freed if the master harmed him or her (even knocked out a tooth). The South didn't do this.
James Pendleton argued in Kentucky that its slavery was very different from biblical slavery. What slaveowners armed their slaves like Abraham armed his?
Rabbi Raphall argued that American slavery dehumanized its slaves, which was not the biblical thrust. Biblical slaves were not property.
Tayler Lewis argued that racial distinctions were done away with in Christ and that the Bible nowhere legitimated racially defined slavery.
6. Noll sums up. It was easy for pro-slavery advocates to paint their opponents as opposed to the Bible. They couldn't accept at all the idea of the blood unity of the race. The more sophisticated arguments of some against slavery didn't fare well against the more commonsensically literal approach (God said it; I believe it; that settles it).
And of course the best line is one Noll has used elsewhere: "it was left to those consummate theologians, the Reverend Doctors Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, to decide what in fact the Bible actually meant."
Comment
The similarity between the current situation on the issue of women and the situation regarding slavery 150 years ago should be obvious, even startling.
1. Those opposed to women in ministry and in favor of an inflexible husband headship turn to secular feminists to argue that you can't believe in the Bible and be in favor of women ministers or a more egalitarian home.
2. They marshall a host of specific verses, especially 1 Timothy 2 but also 1 Corinthians 14 and the household codes of Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter.
3. The Southern Baptist Convention is leading the charge still for "sticking to the Bible" on women ... and they will try to hide this part of their history in 100 years just like they don't talk much about their founding in rebellion to a rule only forbiding slave owners from being missionaries.
We also have the middle ground people today who say, women can be ministers even though the husband must be the head of the home. Also, those opposed use Jesus (why didn't Jesus make one of his disciples a woman?).
4. Those who argue for Christian egalitarianism often use basic principles over and against specific injunctions--"in Christ there is neither male nor female..."
5. Ironically, I myself have used the letter-spirit distinction :-)
6. We won't have a war on this one. But I do predict as many did about slavery that the trajectory is clear. Christians 100 years from now will wag their heads at those who didn't see the "obvious" truth of the gospel that God can and will use a woman in any role or way that He uses men.
1. First, it was easy for those in favor of slavery to point to individuals like William Lloyd Garrison, who basically argued that there were times when discarding a portion of Scripture was the highest evidence of a love for truth. Garrison's presumption here was that the Bible did indeed endorse slavery, but a love of the truth lead one to disregard its teaching on this subject.
This argument of course empowered pro-slavery Christians, for they could use Garrison to argue that all those who were against slavery were godless people who didn't believe in the Bible.
2. Second, the pro-slavery Christians had many, many specific verses to use in their favor. As Noll says, "open the Bible, read it, believe it."
Lev. 25:45-46a: "the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever."
Philemon: Paul instructs an escaped slave to return to his master.
Gen. 9:25-27: "Cursed be Canaan... Canaan shall be his servant." In other words, Ham's descendents were to be the slaves of Noah's two other sons. It was a common belief at that time that the peoples of Africa were the descendents of these.
Gen. 17:22: "he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger" [shall be circumcised].
Deuteronomy 20:10-11: "When thou goest forth to war... and thou hast taken them captive..."
Jesus: abrogated many OT regulations like polygamy and easy divorce--but never said a word against slaveholding.
1 Cor. 7:11--"Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it..."
Rom. 13:1, 7--"Be subject to the higher powers." Paul tells them to conform to the Roman imperial system, which had a harsh system of slaveholding.
Col. 3:22; 4:1--"Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh." Paul does not question the master-slave relationship.
1 Tim. 6:1-2--"servants under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour... they that have believing masters, let them not despise them." Conversion of slaves did not provide cause for emancipation.
These verses were used by Thomas Thompson to support the slave trade in the early 1770's biblically.
3. Third, Noll mentions two defining moments in the early 1800's:
There was a fair debate between one Richard Fuller and Francis Wayland in 1844. Fuller vigorously defended slavery biblically, although he conceded that there were many abuses in the South. Here was Fuller's bottom line: Wayland "admits that neither the Saviour nor his apostles commanded masters to emancipate their slaves; nay, they 'go further,' he adds, 'and prescribe the duties, be it remembered, there is not an intimation of manumission, but the whole code contemplates the continuation of the relation."
So how, Fuller asked, can Wayland argue in general that the moral precepts of the gospel condemn slavery? Wayland was arguing that slavery went against the overall principles of the gospel. Meanwhile, Fuller hammered him with specific verses.
A second defining moment came from Moses Stuart. Stuart believed that Southern Christians, while not compelled, should give up slavery voluntarily. He did not think, for many of the biblical reasons quoted above, that slavery was an evil in and of itself. He simply believed that working out the principles of the gospel would eventually result in the gradual elimination of the practice.
Noll ends this section with some quotes from pro-slavery advocates who said things like that "we have long since settled" the biblical sanction of slavery, descriptions of the cause of slavery as "the cause of God, the cause of Christ ... of Bible with Northern infidelity -- of pure Chrisitianity."
I might also add that the Southern Baptist Convention was founded in opposition to a ruling of the American Baptist Missionary Union in 1844 resolved that it would not appoint slaveholders as missionaries. So the Southern Baptist Convention was formed on the basis of an ardent pro-slavery stance.
4. Those who were against slavery seemed to draw as much on common sense and the basic republican principles on which America was founded ("all men are created equal") as on specific biblical texts: "the principles of the Bible are justice and righteousness." They argued for the "one-bloodism" of humankind (e.g., Acts 17:26).
Beautifully, the most powerful rhetoric against slavery came from the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin! Here a slave owner is depicted as saying that if suddenly owning slaves were to become a great financial burden, the slave owners would all immediately "discover" that the Bible was clearly against slavery. The impression is given that the Bible is easily manipulated to prove anything.
The verse debate is captured as one person quotes about Canaan and another responds "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them." As usual, specific verse goes against basic principle.
In one of the more memorable scenes, a Senator in favor of the Compromise of 1850 (States can declare themselves free but agree to return escaped slaves to the South) is convinced by his wife that he can't return a runaway slave to the South. In the actual situation, he recognizes that what seemed a good theory is wrong in practice.
Some also argued against slavery by arguing for the priority of the spirit over the letter. Noll mentions a man named Leonard Bacon who would have been glad to oppose slavery if he could have justified that position biblically. But he concluded that the spirit over the letter argument did great damage to the Scriptures. He ended up condemning slavery as it was practiced in the South.
5. There were some more nuanced biblical arguments against slavery.
David Barrow pointed out that the comparison between Canaan and Africans didn't follow. Southern slave owners weren't Hebrews and the Africans weren't Canaanites.
Exod. 21:27 says that a slave should be freed if the master harmed him or her (even knocked out a tooth). The South didn't do this.
James Pendleton argued in Kentucky that its slavery was very different from biblical slavery. What slaveowners armed their slaves like Abraham armed his?
Rabbi Raphall argued that American slavery dehumanized its slaves, which was not the biblical thrust. Biblical slaves were not property.
Tayler Lewis argued that racial distinctions were done away with in Christ and that the Bible nowhere legitimated racially defined slavery.
6. Noll sums up. It was easy for pro-slavery advocates to paint their opponents as opposed to the Bible. They couldn't accept at all the idea of the blood unity of the race. The more sophisticated arguments of some against slavery didn't fare well against the more commonsensically literal approach (God said it; I believe it; that settles it).
And of course the best line is one Noll has used elsewhere: "it was left to those consummate theologians, the Reverend Doctors Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, to decide what in fact the Bible actually meant."
Comment
The similarity between the current situation on the issue of women and the situation regarding slavery 150 years ago should be obvious, even startling.
1. Those opposed to women in ministry and in favor of an inflexible husband headship turn to secular feminists to argue that you can't believe in the Bible and be in favor of women ministers or a more egalitarian home.
2. They marshall a host of specific verses, especially 1 Timothy 2 but also 1 Corinthians 14 and the household codes of Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter.
3. The Southern Baptist Convention is leading the charge still for "sticking to the Bible" on women ... and they will try to hide this part of their history in 100 years just like they don't talk much about their founding in rebellion to a rule only forbiding slave owners from being missionaries.
We also have the middle ground people today who say, women can be ministers even though the husband must be the head of the home. Also, those opposed use Jesus (why didn't Jesus make one of his disciples a woman?).
4. Those who argue for Christian egalitarianism often use basic principles over and against specific injunctions--"in Christ there is neither male nor female..."
5. Ironically, I myself have used the letter-spirit distinction :-)
6. We won't have a war on this one. But I do predict as many did about slavery that the trajectory is clear. Christians 100 years from now will wag their heads at those who didn't see the "obvious" truth of the gospel that God can and will use a woman in any role or way that He uses men.
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